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I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ; 




WiNFiELD Scott Hancock, 



Major-General U. S. A' 



LIFE 



AWD MILITARY CAREER 



OF 

WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 



This Work comprises his Early Life, Education and remarkable Military- 
Career, which has made him Senior Major General of the Armies 
of the United States, and the choice of the Democracy of 
the Nation for the high Office of President. It 
also contains a succinct Biographical 
Sketch of 

Hon. TS^M:. H. ENGLISH. 



The whole very carefully prepared from the most authentic and official records 



By Hon. JOHN W. FORNEY, 

Forty years a journalist. 



/? V 



ILLUSTRATED. 



lojf/f 



PUBLISHED BY 

W. H. THOMPSON & CO., 

Boston, Mass. ^jjy 



I lifo) 



.\ 



Copyrighted, 1880. 



Duke. The affair cries haste. 

First Senator. You must away to-night. 

Othello. With all my heart. 
The tyrant custom, most grave senators, 
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war 
My thrice-driven bed of down. I do agnize 
A natural and prompt alacrity 
I find in hardness ; and do undertake 
These present wars against the Ottomites. 

— Othello. 



PROLOGUE. 



I MAKE no apology for this book. It has already had the dou- 
ble advertisement of praise from friends and abuse from foes, 
and if that does not secure it a fair clientage, no explanation 
of mine will. My chief motive is to help once more to put an 
American into the Presidency who will honestly lead the American 
people away from quarrels into comradeship and confidence. Such 
a man is the soldier Hancock. 

Believe me, I have no other aspiration in writing his life. I 
do not want any of his" offices. Never having been a candidate 
before any administration of the general government for place, I 
have simply, in order to maintain my independence, resigned most 
valuable positions voluntarily tendered to me by other Presidents. 
I can safely make this statement ; and as for money, I have never 
learned to steal it from the Government, though I dearly love to 
earn a fair living by honest industry in my own chosen profession. 
The little organs and placemen of a party just ushered into being 
one year after I myself co-operated with it to put down human 
slavery, are now as much disturbed by my refusal to follow that 
party into the very sectionalism I have always despised, and are as 
angry as so many disturbed mice in a rich cheese because they say 
that I have left the ring Eepublicans. As I never belonged to 
these rings, I cannot therefore be accused of leaving them. In one 
thing I am consistent at least, and that is in sincere love of my 

11 



12 PROLOGUE. 

country; and I will join any side or drop any side, if by so doing I 
can get the American people to be good to each other, to be grate- 
ful to thoi^e who have served them, to put the best men into oflEice, 
to help our youth to be honest and manly, and have pluck enough 
to drive out of positions of trust a set of mercenaries as utterly 
disqualified for public responsibility as any men that ever lived. I 
think it is high time for our country to realize that the parrot poli- 
ticians, running up and down the land, shrieking Eepublicanism 
and abusing honest people because they will not bow to such tem- 
porary fantococcini,* are mere impostors, and no more genuine in 
their professions than a set of play actors trying to show that they 
are real kings, when they are simply paste, spangles and feathers. 

General Hancock seems to me to be the constable to clear out 
these intruders. At all events, let us give the bold soldier a full 
chance. I believe in him thoroughly, and have always believed in 
him. I knew him as boy and man, in peace and war, and his 
father's associates in Montgomery County were the friends of my 
youth. I do not condemn him because he was born in my 
State, for I have a Scotchman's love of home ; and I would not 
shoot him because he continues a Democrat, when I know that 
without Democrats we should have been beaten in the civil war. 

This is the general scope of the volume now committed to the 
public. It has been quick work ; and when J recollect that one 
distinguished American has been toiling nearly twenty years on 
the life of Voltaire, that another started on the biography of Gen- 
eral Grant twelve years ago, and has only printed one volume, and 
that another ten years ago advertised an elaborate memoir of Thad- 
deus Stevens, and has not yet issued a single page of it ; if this 
campaign life of Winfield S. Hancock, the Democratic candidate 
for President of the United States, is a little defective, I cannot be 

blamed. Very sincerely, 

J. W. Forney. 

* Fantococcini. Exhibitions and dramatic representations, in which 
puppets are substituted for human performers. — Worcester. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

Fro:ntispiece — Winfield Scott Hancock. 

Maternal Home 19 

Ancestral flome 23 

Eoad between Yorktown and Williamsburg 53 

Battle of Seven Pines and Fair Oaks 71\ 

Battle-Field of the Seven Pines 71 

Hospital at Fair Oaks 89 

Bridge over the Chickahominy 89 

Battle of Gaines' Farm 107 

Ruins of Gaines' Mill 107 

Malvern Hills 123 

-^Antietam Battle-Ground 141 

Battle of Antietam 159 

■Rattle of Fredericksburg 177 

Fredericksburg on the Morning of the 12th 199 

Phillips' House on Fire 199 

Defenses on Gulp's Hill 217 

Ruins of Chancellorsville 217 

Gettysburg .-.. 251 

General George G. Meade 285^ 

General Robert E. Lee. 285 

Waiting for Tickets of Admission to National Convention. 375 
General Hancock receiving Congratulations at Head- 
Quarters 399 

Official Notification 435 

W. H. English 485 

13 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE. 

Biography — Boyhood and Youth.... 17 



CHAPTER n. 
The War. 60 

CHAPTER III. 

Hancock's Genius for Seizing the Opportunity S5 

CHAPTER IV. 
Cemetery Hill 127 

CHAPTER V. 

Edward Everett and Abraham Lincoln 163 

CHAPTER VI. 

In the Campaign with Grant 205 

15 



16 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 

PAGE. 

Can a Great Soldier be a Good Ruler? 221 

CHAPTER VIII. 

A Word to Lincoln and Douglas Republicans 262 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Conquered Confederates 298 

CHAPTER X. 

Incidents and Anecdotes of a Great Soldier's Career 326 

CHAPTER XI. 
Mrs. Surratt 356 

CHAPTER XII. 
Democratic National Convention 370 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Living Statesmen of the Past 411 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Ladies of the White House 453 

CHAPTER XV. 
Hon. W. H. English 487 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 



CHAPTER I. 

BIOGRAPHY, 

HIS BOYHOOD AND YOUTH. 

THERE are some maxims that grow more pre- 
cious with age because they seem to apply 
more forcibly every day to the ordinary trans- 
actions of life. One of these is that of the ancient 
philosopher who declared that most history was 
false except in its dates and names, and that much 
fiction was true except in its dates and names. 
The life of Winfield Scott Hancock is an ex- 
perience that sometimes reads like romance and 
reality combined. It is a succession of lessons to 
young and to old, and we can read none of it with- 
out feeling that Hancock was raised among good 
people and by careful parents, who had instilled 
their own domestic methods into his early train- 
ing. The impression his experience makes upon 
me revives another saying of the great Roman 
2 17 



18 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

freedman, Terence, who, more than two thousand 
years ago, wrote, " I am a man and have an inter- 
est in everything that concerns humanity/' 

The ancestral homestead of General Hancock, 
on the maternal side, stands in Montgomery Co., 
Pa,, half a mile east of Lansdale and about twenty 
miles northwest of Philadelphia. The old portion 
of the house was erected in 1728, and the new 
portion in 1764. In this house the mother of 
General Hancock resided at the time of her mar- 
riage to the General's father. The county in 
which this historic homestead stands was named 
after General Montgomery, who fell at Quebec, 
and whose monument stands in St. Paul's Church- 
yard, New York. At the time of his marriage, 
Mr. Benjamin Franklin Hancock — father of Gene- 
ral Hancock — was living in what was afterwards 
the birth-place of General Hancock, some three 
miles east of Lansdale. It stands about half a 
mile east of the Square, and it is a solid, well-pre- 
served building, of fine appearance. 

When young Hancock v^as a year old, his father 
removed from this old mansion to a house of less 
pretensions, somewhat nearer to Montgomery 
Square, where he resided and taught school under 
the same roof. The school-house residence is still 
standing, but greatly altered in appearance. Two 
years later, young Hancock's father removed to 
Norristown, and there taught school and practiced 
law till he died, at the age of sixty-seven years. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 21 

The ancestors of General Hancock, on both 
sides, belonged to families of revolutionary fame, 
and were engaged in all the wars, from the French 
and Indian, before the Eevolution, down to the 
war of 1812. 

The father of General Hancock married against 
the will of his guardian, who was a Quaker, and 
joined the Baptists, to whom his wife belonged, 
and became a deacon in the Baptist church at 
Norristown. He was a constitutional man and a 
Democrat, but not a politician, and never sought 
or held any political office. When his son, the 
j)resent General Hancock, at the age of sixteen, 
went to West Point, the Quakers attempted to in- 
duce the sister of his father's guardian. Miss Polly 
Roberts, to cut off young Winfield in her will, as 
the profession of a soldier, educated as a man of 
war, was not to be encouraged. She remained 
steadfast, however, until General Hancock had 
graduated and gone to Mexico and become engaged 
with the enemy, and, as she supposed, had "killed 
people.'* Then the "Friends" said it was impos- 
sible she could bestow a legacy upon a person who 
was killing men by wholesale, and this prevailed. 
Winfield was cut off in the will. But, as she sus- 
pected that the "Friends" wanted her money, she 
provided for the younger brother in place of Win- 
field. 

In this old homestead his grandfather died, at 
84, and was buried in the churchyard at Mont- 



22 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

gomery Square, and his father before him died in 
the same house. This very house was attacked by 
Indians and bravely defended by the women. 

Nature cast Hancock in a mould of rare come- 
liness. He seems to have been physically fashioned 
for a soldier. Now in his fifty-seventh year (born 
February 14, 1824) he stands six feet two inches, 
nearly as tall and as broad as the gigantic hero of 
Chippewa and Lundy's Lane, Winfield Scott, after 
whom he was named; and he resembles in speech 
and bearing that impressive and courtly soldier, 
who died at West Point, where Hancock was edu- 
cated, on the 29th day of May, 1866, in the 
eightieth year of his age. Doubtless Hancock's 
father and mother, Benjamin Franklin and Eliza- 
beth Hancock, were largely influenced by the fasci- 
nating incidents of the brilliant hero, who was still 
suffering from the wounds he had received in re- 
pelling the second British invasion of our northern 
frontier — then bearing the golden honors of Con- 
gress, after declining the generous proffers of high 
political office from the administration of President 
Monroe. All unconscious of the future military 
renown of their son, they called him Winfield 
Scott. His twin brother, Hillary Hancock, a mem- 
ber of the Minnesota Bar, is living much respected 
in the beautiful city of Minneapolis, Minnesota; 
his youngest brother, John Hancock, who was also 
in the army of the Potomac with the General, is 
now living in Washington City, D. C, an officer 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 25 

of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. These 
three boys were the only children. 

The father, Benjamin F. Hancock, a respected 
member of the bar, died at Norristown, in his six- 
ty-eighth year, on the first of February, 1867, and 
his mother, at an advanced age, died in the same 
town, two years ago. They were always worthy 
members of the Baptist churches of Norristown 
and Bridgeport. 

The rapid growth of our country is one of the 
strongest arguments in favor of republican insti- 
tutions, and the essential changes of government 
at different periods, not only diffuse official prizes 
among the masses, but also make them better 
acquainted with each other. Peculiar exigencies 
alone, maintained one party in power, consecu- 
tively, for more than a quarter of a century. 
Alternation in administration, and not mere rota- 
tion in office, is the salt that savors and saves at 
once. The distribution of public trusts among the 
people, not the wretched plan of removing subordi- 
nates at the command of every machine despot, is 
after all the highest conservatism. West Point and 
the Naval School are the real colleges of free 
government. Their acolytes come from all ranks 
of society, and from all parties and sections ; 
and while they are thoroughly educated, the 
course of instruction stimulates gentility, emula- 
tion, and manly comradeship; and above all, 
pride of country. The modern magicians, steam 



26 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

and electricity, add to this individual and gen- 
eral knowledge; and at the end of every de- 
cade the citizens have a better knowledge of each 
other, as well as of the vicinities in which they 
were respectively born and lived. A boy raised in 
one place, trained to duty in the army and the 
navy at another, sent abroad by government 
into distant sections and seas, becomes, not 
simply a student of men and manners, but a cos- 
mopolitan, a citizen of the world. 

General Hancock was one of the cadets, who 
have made their native places as renowned as 
themselves, and there are many who would like to 
know something of his birthplace, as they study 
the interesting story of his life. Montgomery 
county, Pennsylvania, so called after General 
Richard Montgomery, the Irish-American Gene- 
ral, killed at Queenstown, in 1775, only nine 
years before that county was taken from the 
larger district of Philadelphia, is one of many 
places that preserve the memory of that true- 
hearted martyr of the cause of human liberty. 
More than any other people, ours cultivate the 
habit of calling their sons, their shires, their towns, 
their counties and their states, after the great men 
who have figured conspicuously in science, litera- 
ture, and arms. So that while the subject of our 
sketch bears the proud name of one of the greatest 
soldiers of the second generation of our civil ex- 
istence, the district in which he first saw the light 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 27 

of life, bears that of another emhient hero of the 
generation which began two years after the Dec- 
laration of Independence. I count over sixty 
Montgomery s in the maps and gazeteers, North 
and South, to designate towns, villages, counties, 
and states in this country, a fact which proves 
that gratitude for bravery is indigenous in the 
American heart, and springs eternal in the Ameri- 
can bosom. 

HIS NATIVE COUNTY. 

Montgomery County, where Hancock was born, 
is one of the loveliest in the State. Nothing 
could be sweeter in spring and summer, and 
bolder and more picturesque in winter, than the 
valley of the Schuylkill river. That useful and 
historic stream forms the south-western boundary ; 
for some distance passing through broad cultivated 
fields, with substantial stone houses and villas : 
here and there an elegant country-seat; then 
sweeps past bold bluffs of rock, almost denying a 
passage to the railroad, and then rushes by bright 
and busy manufacturing towns, its own waters 
helping to drive the machinery. There are other 
streams applied to other practical purposes. The 
mineral wealth, limestone, and marble, supply 
valuable material to the markets of Philadelphia, 
New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. Iron ore 
is mined in large quantities; copper in limited 
amount, has been found in one part of the coun- 



28 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

ty, while its agriculture and manufacturing re- 
sources add to the power of the county. The 
cash value of the land is estimated at over fifty- 
one millions of dollars, and the farm products in 
one year, are estimated to be worth about ten 
millions, while its many woolen, cotton, and iron 
mills are famous all over the country. The able 
editor of the Norristown Herald, my friend, Morgan 
R. Wills, Esq., has printed an excellent picture of 
the history and resources of this interesting region. 

Hancock's native county is rich in Revolu- 
tionary memories and materials — in facts and 
legends: it is sacred ground — Valley Forge, a spot 
made memorable by the great encampment of 
Washington's army, in 1777, where they suffered 
incredible horrors during that terrible winter, is 
only six miles from Norristown, where Hancock 
was born. In that gloomy crisis in our American 
affairs, Washington himself wrote: "There was 
little less than a famine in camp. Part of the 
army had been a week without any kind of flesh, 
and the rest three or four days ; yet naked and 
starving as they were, we cannot enough admire 
the incomparable patience and fidelity of the sol- 
diery, that they had not ere this been excited to 
mutiny and dissension." Within a few years 
Valley Forge has become the property of the peo- 
ple, purchased, furnished and decorated by the 
leading citizens of Pennsylvania. 

What is now Montgomery county, Pennsylva- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 29 

nia, was originally settled by Welsh and Swedes, 
and in the upper part by Germans. Subsequently 
came the Quakers, the Welsh and Swedes, and 
now their descendants are found all over the dis- 
trict, which is itself composed of eleven boroughs, 
thirty townships, fifty-four election districts, with 
a population of about ninety thousand souls. 

When I think of the men of Montgomery 
County, Pennsylvania, they seem to pass before 
the mirror of my memory like the familiars of my 
youth. I knew many of them, including the de- 
scendants of the old families, just as to-day I can 
mentally hold converse with the leading minds of 
both parties in all the States and Territories of 
this Great Republican Empire. I hold in my hand 
an admirable book just out, prepared and edited 
by a citizen of Norristown, M. Auge, " Lives of the 
Eminent Dead and Biographical Notices of Promi- 
nent Living Citizens of Montgomery County, Penn- 
sylvania," and with this for my torch and teacher 
I light up the past and linger upon the present 
with all the pleasure of the spectator ponder- 
ing in a great picture gallery. These were the 
men who went before and walked at the side of 
General Hancock's ancestors. Every county has 
its own record, and such is the fortunate condition 
of our people under republican institutions, aided 
by scientific discoveries and modern inventions 
and a thousand adaptabilities, the results of our 
admirable system of universal education, that the 



30 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

record of one county has become interesting to all 
others; and he who reads the annals of a northern 
or southern state or district, frequently recognizes 
unforgotten names and events. Here we have 
David R. Porter and Francis R. Shunk, Demo- 
cratic Governors of Pennsylvania from 1838 to 
1841 and from 1844 to 1848, both natives of Mont- 
gomery County. Here I find excellent sketches 
of Jonathan Roberts, John B. Sterigere, Jacob 
S. Yost, Benjamin Markley Boyer, Joshua Evans, 
Cadwalader Evans, Joseph Fornance, Jacob 
Fry, Jr., James Boyd, George Bullock, Peter F. 
Rothermel, J. F. Hartranft, the Corson families, 
the Woods families, Samuel Allen, David Crouse, 
Owen Jones, Charles Cutler, Daniel 0. Hitner, E. 
F. Acker and John Friedley; a long catalogue 
of men, most of them dead, some living, members 
of all professions, every one of them known beyond 
the borders of Pennsylvania as men of mark in 
their day and time. The great picture of the 
Battle of Gettysburg, now at Memorial Hall, oppo- 
site the Permanent Exhibition Building, Fairmount 
Park, Philadelphia, was painted by the Rothermel, 
whose name I have just written. 

But it is not only in art and arms, in the learn- 
ing of the Bar, in the inspiration of the Pulpit, and 
in the great historic deeds of the past that this 
single county of Pennsylvania is rich. There are 
manufacturing centres where skilled labor has won 
some of its proudest triumphs. Conshohocken, the 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK 31 

great iron manufacturing centre, a few years ago 
a comparative village, now with a population of 
six thousand, with an annual product of from 
three to four millions of dollars — this and other 
great centres show how rapidly, in connection with 
mental development, the material growth of a 
great county increases with years. Montgomery 
County was also the home and almost the birth- 
place of David Rittenhouse, the astronomer and 
philosopher; where Charles Thompson, the great 
secretary of the first revolutionary congress, had 
his residence — in Lower Merion Township, Mont- 
gomery County — and where he died in 1824, in 
the ninety-seventh year of his age. Here too lived 
Richard Penn Smith, well beloved and remem- 
bered in Philadelphia and elsewhere for his genius 
and genial nature. 

1 

THE MUHLENBERGS. 

But no names awaken a deeper and more per- 
manent interest than the Muhlenbergs. How often 
I have dwelt upon the interesting and attractive 
story of these wonderful men ! — these fighting 
priests, profound scholars, and natural leaders. 
Long ago, in my youthful days, these romantic 
lives came to me, as fascinating as the absorb- 
ing pages of Robinson Crusoe or the Arabian 
Nights, or Riley's Narratives among the Arabs, or 
the pious legend of John Bunyan. Henry Melchior 
Muhlenberg, the founder of the family, was a 



32 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Gottingen student, born in Hanover, Germany, 
who landed in this country in 1742, and founded 
a Lutheran Congregation at Trappe and New Ha- 
nover, Montgomery County, marrying the daughter 
of Conrad Weiser, the celebrated Indian inter- 
preter. And here were born to him the three 
noted children, Peter, Frederick Augustus and 
Henry Ernest, all distinguished clergymen. One 
of his daughters was the mother of Governor John 
Andrew Schultz. His sons born at Trappe were 
educated in Germany. They were a wild set, 
these early Muhlenbergs, brave, original, im- 
perious, all of them Democrats, fighting and 
preaching for patriotic ideas when they were young 
and defending them when they were old. Peter, 
preacher as he was, had a congregation at Wood- 
stock, Shenandoah County, Va. In January, 1776, 
he pronounced a sermon on the "duties men owe 
to their country.'* He preached, adding "There is 
a time for all things, a time to preach and a time 
to fight, and now is the time to fight." Then he 
descended from the pulpit and took off his gown, 
which covered a colonel's uniform, read his com- 
mission, ordered the drummers to beat for recruits, 
and within a few days recruited three hundred 
men from his own churches, enlisted for the re- 
volutionary war. It was not long until he had a 
full regiment mustered into the service. He fought 
in Georgia and South Carolina, at the battles of 
Brandy wine and Germantown, at Valley Forge, in 



W INFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 33 

the battle of Monmouth and at the capture of 
Stony Point. He was at the taking of Yorktown 
in 1781. Then he came back, not to the church 
but to the Trappe in Montgomery County. He 
was chosen as a member of Congress^ member of 
the State Legislature, serving several years in each, 
and was finally United States Senator. In 1803 
he was Collector of the Port of Philadelphia, made 
so by Thomas Jefferson, which he held until 1807, 
when he died at the age of sixty-two. The Au- 
rora, the Democratic organ of Philadelphia, said 
"In private life just, in domestic life affectionate 
and sincere, his body lies beside his father's at the 
Trappe Church." It is this great man's statue that 
Pennsylvania, by Act of Congress, has selected to 
place in the Hall of the Old Eepresentatives at 
Washington, side by side with that of Robert Ful- 
ton, the great engineer and inventor, born in Lan- 
caster County, very near Montgomery — the sculp- 
tor of Muhlenberg being Blanche Nevin of Phila- 
delphia, and that of Fulton being Edward Roberts 
of the same city. 

The second son, Frederick Augustus Muhlen- 
berg, was not less brilliant and distinguished than 
Peter. Educated at the University of Halle^ 
Germany, he returned, and established a church 
in New York, but soon entered politics, also re- 
turning to Trappe, Montgomery county. He was 
in the State Assembly in 1779, one of the Judges 
of the county, then Register and Recorder, then 



34 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Representative in Congress, and afterwards the 
great Speaker of the House of Representatives of 
the United States. 

The other brother, the Rev. Henry Ernest 
Muhlenberg, was born in Trappe, Montgomery 
county, November, 1753. He was ordained, and 
acted as assistant pastor of a Lutheran church of 
Philadelphia, — and a patriot, a man of science, 
a linguist. He removed to Lancaster, where he 
remained at the head of a Lutheran church for 
thirty-five years. The third generation of Muh- 
lenbergs I knew and honored: Henry A. Muhlen- 
berg of Reading, Dr. Frederick Augustus of 
Lancaster, and the eminent scholar of the same 
name, one of the professors in the University 
of Pennsylvania, — the first two gone, the last sur- 
viving, — filled high positions in public, and have 
always been eminent for their virtues. 

I 

MADE A CADET AT THE MILITARY ACADEMY. 

It was among such scenes and men, many of 
the latter known to himself, and those not known 
to him, frequently spoken of by his father, that 
young Hancock approached manhood. A proud 
father and fond mother saw their three boys 
growing in grace and strength. In 1840, Win- 
field was just sixteen years old. It is not flattery 
to say that he was a handsome boy, if you may 
judge by the picturesque soldier now before the 
country, as the candidate of the great party, 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 35 

for the highest gift of over forty-eight millions of 
people. The member of Congress from the 
district, in that year, was Joseph Fornance, a 
Democrat like Hancock's father, who had, at 
that time, considerable influence in Washington. 
A mild, yet conscientious lawyer, he wielded 
a large influence in society and at the bar. It 
fell to his lot, under the law of the government, 
to select a cadet to West Point. For some years 
Winfield had become quite a soldier boy among 
his school-fellows. He was a lad of spirit and 
natural elegance of manner, vigilant at Sunday- 
school, (his father wa3 a Sunday-school teacher,) 
and a leader among his mates. His parents were 
sincere Christians ; morning and evening they had 
their family prayers. Winfield acquired a sort of 
chivalry, and more than once assumed the cham- 
pionship of weaker and younger boys. The lads 
of the village organized a volunteer " soldier com- 
pany," and Winfield was unanimously elected 
captain, when he was only twelve years old, and 
to this date it is remembered in Norristown, 
how well the drills, parades, inspections, reviews, 
battles, and camps of these little men were con- 
ducted under the command of their graceful 
boyish chief. He had learned at home that obe- 
dience was not only a virtue, but a duty. He, 
and his brother Hillary, worshipped their mother. 
I wish I could say that the influence of home in 
these latter days is as controlling as it was fifty 



36 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

years ago, and I hope there are still hamlets and 
country-sides where the simple, gracious, indul- 
gent, yet courageous ministrations of a dear 
mother are as frequent and effective as they were 
in 1835 and 1840. Is it because women are less 
amiable or emulous to excel in piety and devotion, 
or because their children are more eager to rush 
all unprovided and unarmed and inexperienced, 
into the wild and terrible attractions and dangers 
of life? Assuredly, admiration for the sex is 
not dead among men, and ambition to excel no 
longer a passion. Yet without pausing to decide 
the problem, it is useful and certainly pleasant to 
recur to that gentle household in Norristown, of 
which the presiding divinity was the sweet mother 
of the Hancock boys. Her authority was the law. 
And so in the discipline of his little soldiers, 
whenever an offence had to be punished, the case 
was referred, by Winfield, to the mother of the 
culprit, and she, as the supreme court of the occa- 
sion, generally cured the delinquent. 

It was perhaps these early American inclinings 
that attracted a friend of Mr. Fornance, the 
member of Congress from the district, to Winfield. 
But there is a curious incident connected with his 
selection to West Point, that may be related here: 
Appointments to the Military Academy, like 
those to the Naval Academy, have always been 
attractive to American youth. Some years ago a 
practice had grown up under which members of 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 37 

Congress were not themselves indifferent to temp- 
tation, and even to bribes, when they came to dis- 
tribute this peculiar patronage. A few exposures, 
however, seemed to have put an end to the 
wretched business, and now our Congressional 
statesmen have adopted the better practice of 
opening a competition to these great national 
Academies, by which the best pupils in our com- 
mon schools may be examined whenever a cadet 
to West Point or Annapolis must be appointed. 
In this way there is little danger of corrup- 
tion or inferiority. Forty years ago a Phil- 
adelphian came to Norristown with his son, in- 
tending to make a residence preparatory to his 
application for the waiting cadetship. His move- 
ments soon became known to an old friend of 
mine, long since dead, who had himself been in 
Congress and had special reason to distrust the Phil- 
adelphian. This reason was his knowledge of a 
transaction in which the latter was a principal. 
My old friend had sold this man a valuable horse 
under the plain condition that the noble animal 
should be treated well and only put to light work. 
In his day and time my friend had been the lead- 
er of the Democratic party of Montgomery County, 
and many a night he had been carried through 
the townships by this faithful steed, arousing the 
unterrified, or attending to his own heavy law 
business. He loved his old horse ; he trusted his 
Philadelphia acquaintance. But what was his 



38 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

amazement, on visiting the city some time sub- 
sequent to the sale, to find his favorite trotter 
hitched to a heavy loaded dray, and an angry dri- 
ver lashing him with brutal ferocity. The poor 
animal had been sold by the man who had pro- 
mised to be kind to him. It did not take long for 
the original owner to buy back his favorite horse 
at a high price. But he did not forget the bad 
faith of the Philadelphian, and when he found the 
latter had changed his residence to get his son 
into West Point, he at once resolved to see if he 
could not checkmate him. Joseph Fornance was 
the sitting member. The other veteran politician 
lost no time in letting him know the horse story, 
and the scheme to obtain his recommendation of 
the other boy. The next day after his interview 
with the member of Congress, my friend consulted 
Winfield's father and mother, telling them that he 
thought he could secure his selection as a cadet to 
West Point. They were much surprised, but needed 
little persuasion, especially reinforced by the earnest 
appeals of their son to consent to the suggestion. 
Thus giving the boy to his country to begin a 
career, which progressed so favorably and ended so 
brilliantly. My devoted friend died in 1852, leav- 
ing an ample fortune; and his first executor was 
Winfield's father, Benjamin Franklin Hancock. 

And now we find young Winfield Scott Han- 
cock an entered cadet at West Point. Forty 
years have produced a magical change in man- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 39 

kind. The Military Academy has had a tre- 
mendous experience since the Montgomery boy 
crossed its threshold. Of his comrades, those 
who preceded him, and those who followed, 
many are gone and forgotten; yet there is eter- 
nal youth and life in the liberty many of them 
perished to preserve. Cotemporaneous with him at 
the Academy, were many cadets who afterwards 
became distinguished. Among others were Horatio 
G.Wright, A.W.Whipple, Nathaniel Lyon, Schuy- 
ler Hamilton, John F. Reynolds, Don Carlos Buell 
Alfred Sully, John Newton, W. S. Rosencrans 
John Pope, Abner Doubleday, N. J. T. Dana 
George Sykes, Lafayette McLaws, James Long 
street, W. B. Franklin, C. C. Augur, Ulysses S 
Grant, Rufus Ingalls, W. F. Smith, Fitz John For 
ter, John P. Hatch, Gordon Granger, George B 
McClellan, J. L. Reno, D. N. Couch, T. F. Jackson 
and George Stoneman. Established by the wise 
prevision of Washington, West Point is a school 
that has proved its value to our institutions 
in many fields of science and of strife. The 
novitiate of Winfield was crowned by the respect- 
ability of his examination, and the average ex- 
cellence of his standing in the graduating class. 

IS MADE LIEUTENANT IN THE ARMY. 

The studies and service at West Point cover four 
years of time, and on the 30th day of June, 1844, 
he graduated. He was first designated as a Brevet 



40 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

second Lieutenant in the 6th United States In- 
fantry, July 1, in the same year, and on the 18th 
of June, 1846, he secured his commission as full 
second lieutenant in the same regiment. He was 
then 22 years of age. 

In 1846 no man or woman in this country 
had any conception where the next thirty years 
would carry our country ; and when young Lieu- 
tenant Hancock was sent into the Red River of 
the South, in the wonderful region of the Washita, 
there was every chance that he would fall a vic- 
tim to the yellow fever, or perish under the toma- 
hawk of the savage. The annexation of Texas 
had been assured by the bravery of Sam Houston 
and his associates, and afterward by solemn treaty 
with the United States; but the mighty empire 
could not be successfully and solidly sealed to the 
great Republic, without the war with Mexico in 
1847-48. So the young soldier had not long to 
wait before he was summoned from his remote 
western post to join the American army under 
Gen. Scott, which had just entered Vera Cruz, 
and was already co-operating with the army of 
the Centre under General Taylor. It was after 
the bloody victory over Santa Anna at Buena 
Vista; and the whole nation watched the issue 
of the grand movements between the Gulf and the 
city of Mexico with palpitating hearts. Who that 
lived in those days can ever forget the excitement 
with which "one victory trod upon another's 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 41 

heels, so fast they followed ?" Our small army- 
small, when we compare it with the vast hosts 
that fourteen years later rushed to uphold and 
defend the Flag — was then united against the 
foreign foe. North and South, East and West, 
Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, and Caleb Gushing 
of Massachusetts, Franklin Pierce of New Hamp- 
shire and John A. Quitman of Mississippi, Eobert 
Patterson of Pennsylvania and Thomas Hamer 
of Ohio, Garland of Virginia and Geary of Penn- 
sylvania, fought side by side in patriotic emula- 
tion. Our boy-lieutenant fought at Churubusco, 
Molino del Key (the king's mills) and the hill of 
Chapultepec, and with such gallantry that he was 
breveted on the field, and honored by the thanks 
of his native state, expressed to himself and his 
associates by the legislature of Pennsylvania. 

This first step in the life of the new soldier was 
part of a career to which the Democratic party of 
the United States can always look with honor. 
The war with Mexico was denounced by the 
Whigs as unjust and unconstitutional, and yet, 
judged by the harvest, was most important in its 
influence upon our destinies. It secured Texas to 
the United States, forced the acquisition of Cali- 
fornia, and rounded our mighty domain by an 
ocean-barrier in the far west, and made the occu- 
pation of the Pacific coast and the construction of 
the continental railroad across the Rocky Moun- 
tains inevitable measures of national defence 



42 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

against all enemies, external and internal. The 
Mexican war was only the beginning, the prepa- 
ration of a dazzling as well as dangerous expe- 
rience. Hancock could not read his own future. 
The capture of the City of Mexico was followed 
by the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo. 

AFTER THE MEXICAN WAR HE IS ORDERED TO 
CALIFORNIA. 

On the 17th of September, 1848, and the close 
of the war, more brevets crowned his impetuous 
bravery; and still associated with the gallant 6th 
Infantry, he was stationed at Fort Crawford, Prairie 
du Chien, Wisconsin, where he remained till 1849. 
The ancient hunting grounds of six powerful tribes 
of Indians, afterward a territory, and finally a 
State, with a population of a million and a half, 
Wisconsin is one of those republics, which has 
grown up since Gen. Hancock entered the army. 
In 1840, when he became a cadet, it had -but 
31,000 souls; in the same year Minnesota was not 
yet even organized into a territory, and in 1880 
the whole state had a population of but 6,077, 
now over a million; in 1840, Michigan had 212,- 
267 people, now over a million and a half. In 
1840, Illinois had 476,183; in 1880, three mil- 
lions. In 1840, Iowa had 43,112 people; in 1880, 
a million and a half. 

The rapid development of the empire of the West 
carefully studied by Hancock during his six years 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 43 

residence at Jeflferson Barrack, twelve miles from 
the city of St. Louis, on the Mississippi river, was 
made interesting by his marriage on the 24 th of 
January, 1850, with Miss Almira Russell, daughter 
of Samuel Eussell, a prominent St. Louis mer- 
chant. Thev have had two children, a son and a 
daughter; the former, a married man of thirty, 
has been staying at Governor's Island, with his 
wife and two children. The only daughter of 
the household died some years ago, and the loss is 
still felt by the General and his wife. 

After his service at Fort Jefferson, Gen. Han- 
cock, now Captain Hancock, was stationed at Fort 
Myers, near San Augustine, Florida. This was in 
1856; he remained there till November of the 
year, when he was ordered to the United States 
territory of Utah, part of the command of Gen. 
Harney, on his expedition to Kansas and the re- 
gions beyond. From Utah he was transferred to 
Benecia, California, and after that to Los Angelos, 
in what is called Lower California, and remained 
there till 1861. 

It will be seen that since his station at Prairie 
du Chien, Gen. Hancock resided in the South, in 
Missouri, in Florida, at Salt Lake City, had wit- 
nessed the early struggle between slavery and free- 
dom in Kansas, had crossed the Rocky Mountains 
ten years before the Pacific railroad was completed, 
and landed on the shores of that California, which 
he aided to acquire in 1847-48, by his services in 



44 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

the Mexican war. He had therefore in the course 
of eleven years passed from the extreme Southern 
shore of our Atlantic possessions and pitched his 
tent almost on the Northern verge of the Pacific. 
Here we have a varied experience. It is the vul- 
gar practice of some of the party people to say that 
Gen. Hancock is not a statesman; that he has 
seen no civil service, and that he has been sup- 
ported by the Government. 

These are the scandals of men who claim to be 
Republicans, per se : the organs of a party made 
by the citizen soldiers of a great country: the 
echoes of partiz^ans enriched by the opportunities 
for the plunder of the war : and worse than all the 
politicians, twice saved from defeat by a regular 
soldier, General Grant. There is not a volunteer 
soldier, not a living veteran, not an intelligent 
American in any part of the country that will not 
turn from this treatment of General Hancock with 
loathing. Even the partisan will not deny that this 
life in different latitudes and among different peo- 
ples, with varied habits, was in itself a liberal ed- 
ucation ; and perhaps if General Hancock did not 
acquire the art of sentence making, and the talent 
of receiving his pay as a member of Congress, and 
also heavy fees for pushing jobs through his com- 
mittee, he may, nevertheless, be as fit as Jackson, 
Harrison, Taylor or Grant, to conduct the Presi- 
dency. Certain it is, his party will not be called 
upon to defend him against the unanswerable and 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 45 

unanswered charge of being paid twice for his 
public services ; once his legal salary and again an 
illegal fee for serving contractors for public work, 
to be paid out of the National Treasury. Another 
critic says General Hancock is "in no proper 
sense a citizen of Pennsylvania ; he is not in sym- 
pathy with their interests, he is not in any way 
identified with her prosperity, and he never has 
been." His duty called him from home, and from 
1844 to 1865 he really had no home ; his absence 
was to fight for his country, sometimes the Mex- 
icans, sometimes the Indians, and finally the 
Confederates; his life in constant danger all 
those times, and three times wounded, once al- 
most to his death. Yet this history and this ser- 
vice are perverted, not only to show that he has 
lost his citizenship by his self-sacrifice, but by so 
doing he has proved that he has no interest in his 
native state. 

To reach Benecia, California, at one time the capi- 
tal of the Golden State, standing on a commanding 
eminence, at the junction of the Strait with 
the bays of San Pablo and Suisun, Captain Han- 
cock crossed a large portion of our North American 
Continent. Here he gathered much knowledge of 
the difficulties subsequently encountered, when the 
Great Pacific Railroad was begun, examined the 
climate, mineral treasures, mountains, rivers and 
inland seas of that wild and interesting region, en- 
during with his command much suffering, and was 



46 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

particularly interested in the extraordinary ap- 
pearance of the country around Benecia. 

In a few months he was transferred to the old 
Spanish town of Los Angelos, or the town of the 
Angels. Here he was stationed for two years in 
his responsible position in the quartermaster 
general's department of the United States. And 
here may be said to have begun that part of his 
career, and that part of the career of his country, 
which introduced our great civil war. 

HIS FIRM SPEECH FOR THE UNION. 

In 1872 I had the pleasure, in company with 
Col. Thomas A. Scott and a large party, to visit 
this exquisite coast range of mountains, San Diego 
with its beautiful bay, Santa Barbara and Los 
Angelos, and I found that Gen. Hancock had 
left behind a memory in which he was cherished 
by something more than friendship by the people 
of all parties. How different from the high moun- 
tains around Benecia, with its jagged sides, 
blackened by fissures and caverns where the 
spent volcanic action of countless ages has left its 
deep lines on the rifted chasms ! Los Angelos re- 
minded me of the most delightful climate of Italy. 
In addition to the hospitality of the people, the 
eloquence of the men and the beauty of the women, 
there was something in the atmosphere of the 
plains, cooled by the breezes from the mountains, 
which resembled the wonderful transparent, whole- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 47 

some perfumed temperature of the country around 
Nice, Heyeres, and Cannes in Southern France. 
Like the volcanic soil of Italy, the natural produc- 
tion of Los Angelos includes a variety of different 
seeds and fruits, potatoes and oranges, corn and figs, 
wheat and lemons, pears and pomegranates, me- 
lons and dates, tobacco and grapes, sugar-cane and 
apples. And to complete the co-mparison, you see 
hills still white with dissolving snow, while the de- 
clivities around you are variegated with enchanting 
flowers. Here, to Southern California, as well, in- 
deed, all along the coast, reaching San Francisco it- 
self, and even Sacramento and San Jose, vast 
hordes of people, north and south, w^ere attracted; 
chiefly by the wonderful stories of the exceeding 
salubrity and beauty of California. They floated 
in after the acquisition of that great empire 
under the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, February 
2, 1848, and when, in the same year. Gen. John 
A. Sutter announced that gold had been discovered 
on his lands, on the American River, by James 
W. Marshall, a laboring man, that thrilling news 
spread widely, and the immense emigration of 
1849 came, — a resistless exodus from all parts 
of our country. Gen. John A. Sutter, although 
born in Switzerland, February 15, 1803, spent the 
last years of his life in Litiz, Lancaster County, 
only a few hours ride from the native place of Gen. 
Hancock, and died on the 18th of June, 1880, in 
the city of Washington, and was buried at Litiz, 



48 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

This American migration to California was from 
the North, the South, the New England States 
and the Middle States, made up of people with all 
their prejudices and their interests keenly alive. 
These multitudes were conscious of the fact that 
that splendid out-post of our new domain was the 
rich prize of the American conquest of the Mexi- 
can arms. Although paid for out of the National 
Treasury, it was a cheap outlay, considering the 
magnanimity that prompted the government, and 
the incalculable consequences of the purchase, 
morally, socially, politically and financially. Of 
this migration the best remembered were, David C. 
Broderick, William M. Gwin, Gen. Stoneman, 
W. C. Kalston, Miles Sweeny, Leland Stanford, 
Peter Donahue, Milton S. Latham, George W. 
Barton, Edward C. Baker, Calhoun Benham, 
Joseph C. McKibbin, Gen. Banning, Joe Hooker, 
Gen. John C. Fremont, Rodman M. Price, Carlisle 
Patterson, Collin M. Boyd, Gen. H. Gates Gibson, 
Paul C. Upham, Admiral Dupont, Gen. Nagley, 
A. D. Stevenson, Ulysses S. Grant, Philip Kearney, 
Edward C. Beale, Com. Stockton, Bayard Taylor, 
Alexander Wells; and the list could be elaborately 
extended, although the reader will notice that a 
minority only are left alive. 

The men around Los Angelos, where Gen. Han- 
cock resided for two years before the war, were 
bold, original and daring characters, the democrats 
generally with southern sympathies, and the Re- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 49 

publicans in 1858 and 1859, comparatively few. 
In 1876, the survivors visited Philadelphia to 
celebrate the Centennial ; and their great com- 
memoration on Saturday, September 9 th, of that 
year, in the Pacific Coast Centennial Hall, was an 
occasion never to be forgotten by those who were 
present. 

At Los Angelos, Captain Hancock received the 
news of the incipient demonstrations against the 
Union in 1860, and it was at this critical moment 
that he displayed, alike his patriotism, his magna- 
nimity and his toleration. Abraham Lincoln had 
been elected president of the United States in 
November, and it was about Christmas time when 
Hancock heard the fact. He had never taken 
part in the divisions of the democratic party, but 
he saw that these divisions could only end one 
way, and that was the defeat of the old organiza- 
tion to which his fathers had been attached. 
Enough for him that it was a constitutional election 
and that the republican candidate was fairly 
chosen. Born a Democrat himself, and never 
denying his attachment to that great party, he 
threw himself boldly into all the discussions of the 
hour ; and while maintaining strict guard over his 
own temper, s-tood firm and fast to the old flag 
in the midst of the tempest of passion and fanati- 
cism. 

On the 4th of July, 1861, he made an address 
at the first union meeting in Los Angelos, Califor- 



50 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

nia. It must be recollected when this speech was 
pronounced that the whole of that part of the state 
was over-run with secession sympathisers. When 
it was delivered he had heard of the preparations 
for rebellion ; but from the North he had no distinct 
information that the dissolution of these states had 
been really contemplated. There was no telegraph 
wire at that time between the east and west, 
absolutely no communication except across the 
plains and around by the Isthmus of Panama to 
San Francisco. This magnificent utterance was 
the simple enthusiasm of his heart at the moment. 

He spoke as follows : 

We have met to commemorate that day of all among Americans, the 
most hallowed and cherished of the national memories of a life-time— 
the 4th of July, 1776, — that day when the reign of tyrants in the colo- 
nies of America ceased, and the reign of reason, of fraternity, and of 
equal political rights began. 

Who on this continent does not know of the great event which tran- 
spired on that day — the anniversary of which we are met here to cele- 
brate — that event so interesting to all Americans — the declaration of 
our national independence, and who among us would wish to see the 
day approach when that occasion should cease to be commemorated ? 
I will not believe that any can be found so destitute of patriotic pride 
as not to feel in his veins a thrilling current when the deeds of his 
ancestors in the battle of the Revolution are mentioned. 

Can any one hear the great events of that contest related without 
wishing that his ancestors had been personally engaged in them ? 

Who of us can forget the names of Lexington, of Monmouth, of Bran- 
dywine and Yorktown, and who can regret that he is a descendant of 
those who fought there for the liberties we now enjoy ? And what flag 
is it that we now look to as the banner that carried us through the great 
contest, and was honored by the gallant deeds of its defenders? The 
Btar-spangled banner of America, then embracing thirteen pale stars, 
representing that number of oppressed colonies; now, thirty-four 
bright planets, representing that number of great states. To be sure, 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 51 

clouds intervene between us and eleven of that number, but we will 
trust that those clouds may soon be dispelled and that those great stars 
in the southern constellation may shine forth again with even greater 
splendor than before. 

Let us believe, at least let us trust, that our brothers there do not wish 
to separate themselves permanently from the common memories which 
have so long bound us together, but that when reason returns and re- 
sumes her sway they will prefer the brighter page of history which our 
mutual deeds have inscribed upon the tablets of time, to that of the un- 
certain future of a new confederation which, alas, to them may prove 
illusory and unsatisfactory. 

Let them return to us. We will welcome thera as brothers who have 
been estranged, but have come back. We have an interest in the battle- 
fields of the Revolution in those States, not second to their own. Our 
forefathers fought there side by side with theirs. Can they, if they 
would, throw aside their rights to the memories of the great fields on 
our soil on which their ancestors won renown ? No, they cannot ! God 
forbid that they should desire it. To those who, regardless of these 
sacred memories, insist on sundering this union of States, let us who 
only wish our birth-rights preserved to us, and whose desire it is to be 
still citizens of the great country that gave us birth, and to live under 
that flag which has gained for us the glory we boast of, say this day to 
those among us who feel aggrieved : Your rights we will respect ; your 
wrongs we will assist you to redress ; but the government resulting 
from the union of these states is a priceless heritage that we intend to 
preserve and defend to the last extremity. 

Hancock did not long remain in California after 
this noble speech. He at once solicited employ- 
ment in the Union army, and reported for duty in 
Washington, in September of 1861, when he was 
thirty-eight years of age. His politics are found in 
a letter to a friend in Pennsylvania after the out- 
break of the rebellion, and these are his exact 
words : '^ My politics are of a practical kind ; the 
integrity of my country, the supremacy of the 
Federal government, and an honorable peace, or 
none at all. 



52 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Unlike other officers of the regular army, who 
fled their posts, Hancock stood firm. One in whom 
I trust as I would trust few men, writes me as fol- 
lows from San Francisco under date of July 5, 1880. 
" God bless you for your dispatch to Dougherty, 
and your support of Hancock ; I am, like you, a 
Republican of the Lincoln, Douglass and Broderick 
stripe." And he continued: 

" Well do I remember young Captain Hancock, in the old Spanish 
town of Los Angelos, in Lower California, when the news of the Ke- 
bellion crossed the continent in 1861. Poor Broderick had been shot 
by Terry in a duel, in the September of 1859, and we were cut off from 
nearly all intercourse with our homes in the North. Hancock, as you 
know at that time, was in the United States Quartermaster's Depart- 
ment, under that good old soldier, General Casey. He did not stop to 
count the cost to himself. He is really a very good speaker, and he 
had to deal with a very peculiar people. The emigrants in that part 
of California, many of them from the seceded and disaffected South, 
were very uneasy. They sympathized with secession, their hearts 
were with the South, and if Hancock had not been a real patriot, if he 
had not been reared among good people in Pennsylvania, all that was 
needed for him was to encourage them by his coldness, or drive them 
to violence by his sympathy. In this far distant stronghold at that 
time, he upheld the flag of his country, the integrity of the Union, and 
the rights of man." 

BETURNS TO WASHINGTON AND ENTERS THE ARMY 
AGAINST THE CONFEDERATES; MEETS MR. LINCOLN. 

He first offered his services to Governor Curtin, 
of Pennsylvania, but before an arrangement could 
be consummated he was recalled to duty in the 
regular army, and immediately^ assigned to the 
post of chief Quartermaster on the staff of General 
Robert Anderson, the hero of Fort Sumpter, who 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 55 

had been placed in command of the Union forces 
in his native State of Kentucky. While prepar- 
ing to comply with this order President Lincoln, 
on the 2od of September^ 1861, commissioned 
him as Brigadier General. 

I remember the day of his appointmen as 
Brigadier General, on the formal recommendation 
of General McClellan, and his assignment to the 
division of the Army of the Potomac, commanded 
by Baldy Smith, lying across the chain bridge 
near Lewinsville. His first general command 
consisted of four splendid regiments; one from 
New York, one from Pennsylvania, one from the 
backwoods of Maine, and one from Wisconsin. 

It is, indeed, interesting to know that his 
very first command included troops from widely 
different States, and this distribution marked his 
whole career; thus making a constituency as 
wide as the country itself. During the early 
period of his service in the regular army, inclu- 
ding his participation in the Mexican war, his life 
on the frontier, and his final relations with the 
quartermaster's department in Lower California, 
he had made himself thoroughly familiar with the 
officers and men representing the old Southern 
States — and now his military constituency was 
distributed through New England, through the 
west. New York, and his own native common- 
wealth of Pennsylvania — and as you follow his 
life, down to the close of the rebellion, down to 



56 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

peace between Grant and Lee, it may be said that 
there is hardly a county, and certainly not a State 
in the Union, in which General Hancock may not 
count military intimates and cultivated friends. 

After General Hancock assumed this command, 
an event took place in the City of Washington, so 
sad, so touching, and at the time so tragic, that I 
feel like recalling it here. General Edward D. 
Baker, while Senator in Congress from California, 
was killed on the 21st of October, 1861, in the 
battle of Ball's Bluff, and as he, like poor Broder- 
ick who died two years before in a duel with 
Judge Terry, was the friend of General Hancock, 
I recall some of the words spoken by Baker, on 
August 1st, 1861, in the Senate, two months before 
he died. It was after Baker's death that General 
Hancock, lookhig upon the dead, before and 
around him, used these words : " Soldiers, these 
are terrible gaps that I see before me in your 
ranks. They remind me and you of our dead in 
the field of battle, of our wounded comrades in 
the hospitals, of kindred and friends weeping at 
home for those who filled the vacant places that 
once knew them, but shall know them no more 
forever. Are you willing again to peril your 
lives for the liberty of your country ? Would 
you go with me to the field to-morrow ? Would 
you go to-day ? Would you go this moment ? " 
There was the pause of an instant, and then a 
unanimous shout from the thousands of the line. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 57 

Only a few weeks before, Baker, in the Senate 
of the United States, in reply to Breckenridge, 
spoke as follows : " This threat about money and 
men amounts to nothing. Some of the States 
which have been named in that connection, I 
know well. I know, as my friend from Illinois 
will bear me witness, his own State very well. 
I am sure that no temporary defeat, no momenta- 
ry disaster, will swerve that State, either from its 
allegiance to the Union, or from its determination 
to preserve it. It is not with us a question of 
money or of blood, it is a question involving con- 
siderations higher than these." 

At that time I was Secretary of the Senate of 
the United States, and at intervals the Union 
Generals came in to confer with their Representa- 
tives, their Senators and their friends. General 
Hancock was always a favorite and conspicuous 
figure and a well beloved friend. I know the fer- 
vent admiration he excited among the statesmen, 
as I know the deep trust and respect entertained 
for him by his soldiers. He saw Mr. Lincoln 
frequently, and was always a favorite at the 
White House, never mingled in political cabals, 
never had what was called a party, and had no 
more idea at that time of being a candidate for 
President of the United States than of being placed 
in command of the Confederates. He was a partic- 
ular favorite of Pennsylvania troops, and his tastes 
were all military. A most attractive man, in the 



58 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

society at the capital, he was a universal favorite. 
Nearly all the other Generals had their cliques and 
their champions, but this dashing soldier seemed 
to have no other ambition than to support the 
Union, to obey the orders of his chief and to see 
after the comforts of his men. 

Of all those who figured in that tremen- 
dous drama, most are gone. Sherman, and 
McDowell, and a few more are left, somewhat 
advanced in life. Many were killed in battle; 
many have died in the hospital ; many have been 
retired ; and like the myriads they led in victory 
and defeat, the great majority sleep their last 
sleep. Hancock survives, among the last of the 
old army of the Potomac, and in a few years, he 
will have passed his grand climacteric. 

Many were the incidents crowded into that 
part of his career. Society in Washington during 
the war, especially while the great hosts on oppo- 
sing sides were watching each other, was a strange 
medley — so different from the men and women 
who clustered to the capital in the former days 
of peace, and who have followed the close of 
the war. There were long months of inac- 
tion, during which the chiefs were called to the 
capital, either for consultation or relaxation, and 
it was during those days that I had the pleasure 
of meeting the great soldiers and statesmen who 
figured in the decisive events in and around the 
capital. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 59 

One evening before the death of General Baker, 
at one of the parties in my quarters on Capitol Hill, 
General Hancock himself being among my visitors 
and guests, I induced the accomplished Senator 
from California to read for me the beautiful verses 
written by him some years before; and if the 
reader can recall the life of the handsome Senator 
and his untimely fate, he may conceive the im- 
pression which these beautiful lines made upon the 
company : 

"TO AAV AVE." 

" Dost thou seek a star, with thy swelling breast, 
Oh I wave that leavest thy mother's breast ? 
Dost thou leap from the prisoned depths below, 
In scorn of their calm and constant flow ? 
Or art thou seeking some distant land, 
To die in murmurs upon the strand ? 

Hast thou tales to tiell of the pearl-lit deep, 
Where the wave- whelmed mariner rocks in sleep? 
Canst thou speak of navies" that sunk in pride, 
Ere the roll of their thunder in echo died ? 
What trophies, what banners are floating free 
In the shadowy depths of that silent sea ? 

It were vain to ask, as thou rollest afar, 
Of banner, or mariner, ship, or star; 
It were vain to seek in thy stormy face 
Some tale of the sorrowful past to trace. 
Thou art swelling high, thou art flashing free ; 
How vain are the questions we ask of thee. 

I, too, am a wave on a stormy sea ; 

I, too, am a wanderer driven like thee ; 

I, too, am seeking a distant land 

To be lost and gone ere I reach the strand. 

For the land I seek is a waveless shore, 

And they who once reach it shall wander no more. 



60 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 



CHAPTER II. 

THE WAR. 

W INFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK'S father was 
in the best sense of the word an honest, 
upright lawyer, and much of the General's 
easy speech and pleasing address grew from his 
home tuition. " The boy is father to the man :" and 
the aptitudes that come from such association are 
always felt for good or evil. Eeceptive in a large 
degree, no word dropped from the lawyer was lost 
in the waiting ears of his eager boy ; and when 
Benjamin F. Hancock described the romantic 
career of these travelling, and preaching, and 
fighting Muhlenbergs, he found greedy listeners in 
his three sons. To this day they are the unfor- 
gotten memories of the Trappe, where their family 
settled, and several of their posterity lived, loved, 
and died. David Rittenhouse was another house- 
hold idol, and his memoirs filled a large space in 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 61 

the family annals. These were followed by the 
story of the honorable life of Francis R. Shunk, 
the German Governor of Pennsylvania, and his 
cotemporaries. Such characters, all of them na- 
tional and renowned, including the gossip of the 
veterans of two wars, rapidly formed a broad and 
general philosophy in the mind of the young cadet. 
Here we discover why in after life General Han- 
cock fought for the Union without hatred for the 
South, and why he remained to the end a member 
of the Democratic party. It was his constant 
presence in the army that kept him out of party 
politics at home, and it was his recollection of the 
lessons of home that made him ready at any time 
to die for the Union. Grant became a Republican 
in 1868 because he was forced into civil life. Had 
he remained in the army he would have been as 
judicial in his relations to party as Sherman or 
George H. Thomas ; and it is history that when 
General Grant was first approached to accept the 
Presidency, the only fear of the Republicans was 
that the Democrats would get him first. Twelve 
years ago the most popular and available men to 
the Republican politicians were the Democrats who 
had co-operated with the Republicans. That was 
only four years after the Rebellion was crushed, 
and they were fearful that they had no man but 
Grant to save them. Now when peace and oblivion 
to gratitude have come, the same Republican po- 
liticians throw Grant over-board, and falsely insist 



62 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

that Hancock will ruin the country, because he 
remains a Democrat, ^exactly what Grant was be- 
fore he consented to run for the same office in 
1867. In that year when I wrote out the record 
of General Grant on politics, the Kepublican lead- 
ers were ready to take him on any platform if 
only he would save the Presidency for them. The 
year after that, 1868, they feared that Andrew 
Johnson had so utterly demoralized their party, 
that nobody could save it but Grant. They were 
literally begging at his feet for his consent. He 
was indifferent to the place, and so content with his 
position at the head of the army, that it was only 
when he saw they had no other place to go that he 
yielded to their importunities. They had none of 
the fear about his Democracy they now express 
about the Democracy of Hancock. His soldier re- 
cord was all the platform they wanted. His old 
Democracy would please the Democrats of the 
North, and his magnanimity to Lee at Appomattox 
in 1865, would please the South. That was all 
they asked in 1868. Now everything is forgotten, 
including his services to them in 1872 when he de- 
feated Greeley for them, and they fly into a passion 
because the Democrats have done what they did, 
take a Union soldier on his Union record alone. 
And in this the Confederates give the very best 
guarantee of Democratic fidelity to that Union, 
and to all the resulting obligations in the Con- 
stitution of the United States. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 63 

Nothing in the history of our civil war is more 
interesting than the supposed opinions of the 
officers of the regular army. General McClel- 
lan had to suffer from the suspicion industriously 
encouraged by his adversaries, that he was a 
Democrat, and although his father, a celebrated 
doctor, George B. McClellan of Philadelphia, was 
an active old line whig, and in 1844 one of the 
idolaters of Henry Clay, yet the circumstance that 
his son had been educated at West Point led a 
large number of the extreme anti-slavery politi- 
cians at Washington, to class him among the 
Democrats ; and it was a fashionable thing at that 
time, to insist that every regular was either 
doubtful or disloyal. However unjust this suspi- 
cion, it was much encouraged by the withdrawal 
from the service, on the plea of State Rights, of 
men like Robert E. Lee, Joe Johnson, Longstreet, 
Stonewall Jackson, John B. Magruder, and many 
more, all, or most of them. West Point men. At 
the same time it opened the door to the admis- 
sion of much other material, men who tried to 
compensate for their inferior military experience 
by their somewhat noisy political professions. Gen- 
eral McClellan soon found himself among a nest 
of hornets, and it is simple justice to say, that 
many of his misfortunes, alike as a soldier and a 
statesman, resulted from the political intrigues 
and misrepresentations by which he was sur- 
rounded. I resided at Washington during all the 



64 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

years of the war, and for ten years after the war, 
and there is no recollection of my life so full of 
compensation, as the fact that I never yielded to 
any of the intrigues or combinations against any 
of the soldiers of the republic. The exception to 
the rule — I mean the exception to the rule of 
political Generals, — was Winfield Scott Hancock. 

HOW THE SOUTH SUFFERED FOR AN IDEA. 

General Hancock was appointed Brigadier Gen- 
eral by President Lincoln on the recommendation 
of Gen. McClellan, on the 23d of September, 1861. 
He was in the young prime of life, and he was 
needed in Washington. There is a baleful theory 
much insisted upon now., and for the first time, 
that Winfield S. Hancock, because he was a Demo- 
crat, deserved no credit for standing by the Union, 
and because also his State had declared for the 
Union, and there is a malign intimation in the 
party mind to-day to forget brilliant and unselfish 
service, in the consideration of this hateful and 
most discreditable suspicion. I cannot conceive 
anything more galling and insulting than this 
aspersion to the brave soldiers, Republicans and 
Democrats, who fought for the Union. For the 
men of the South who were carried away by 
the doctrine of State Rights, I have always had 
the largest indulgence. They were educated in a 
school, all the more fascinating because it had many 
devotees in the Free States. I, myself, can well re- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 65 

member when to believe in the sovereignty of the 
State was so far a Democratic doctrine, that it only 
needed the attempt to apply it to the sanction of 
human slavery, to prove its hideous enormity. In- 
deed, until General Jackson, in 1830, under the 
influence of that innate patriotism which belonged 
to his character, declared that love of the Union 
was a supreme duty, and that state pride, how- 
ever worthy, was subordinate to the higher obedi- 
ence to the love of country, the Democratic mind 
had never been fairly brought face to face with 
this dangerous truism. 

'' State Eights " to use the great words of Daniel 
Webster, in his reply to Hayne in 1830, in the 
Senate of the United States, referring to unkind 
feelings between the two sections, "are the growth, 
unnatural to such soil's, of false principles, since 
sown ; they are weeds, the seeds of which, the same 
great arm of Washington never scattered." And 
yet it was this delusive doctrine that carried away 
many of the bravest and best men of the South ; 
that filled hundreds and thousands of graves, that 
prolonged the war, and that is to-day the cause of 
so much humiliation and sufiering all through tJiat 
section. Because it was honestly believed, because 
it was bred in the bone and in the blood of these 
southern statesmen and soldiers, shall we there- 
fore consign them to utter and irretrievable dam- 
nation? This is the spirit of something more than 
intolerance ; it is the spirit that would condemn a 



66 LIFE AJS^D PUBLIC CAREER OF 

fellow-creature for believing in a dififerent religion: 
it is the spirit that has filled the prisons of all the 
ages, that has supplied victims for the faggots and 
the scaffolds of the past, and that from the time of 
the great Sufferer for mankind, has always stimu- 
lated the tyrant and the bigot. 

Gen. Hancock was happy in the gentle educa- 
tion of home, happy in a love of country un- 
poisoned by dangerous theories. 

I could name many instances of brave men who 
went forth to suffer and to die for the doctrine of 
State Rights, and knowing myself how I was 
rescued from their influence — perhaps because I 
was born under the same institutions that saved 
Gen. Hancock from them — I can make all allow- 
ance for my fellow-citizens in the South. Let me 
mention one case : 

When the war broke out, a gallant soldier 
serving in the far frontier, a citizen of the State of 
Maryland, carried away by this state allegiance, 
seeing the progress of the strife, for the moment 
forgot that he had been educated at West Point, 
and reared under our free institutions, impulsively 
wrote to his brother in Maryland, enclosing a let- 
ter to the Secretary of War, resigning his commis- 
sion in the army. He thought Maryland had gone 
out. That brother happened to be a violent seces- 
sionist, and without thinking that his kinsman had 
a large family depending upon him and that he 
had acted without thought, he hurried to Wash- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 67 

ington and deposited the resignation with the 
Secretary of War. The next day after this hasty 
letter was sent by the absent officer, " considera- 
tion came to whip the offending Adam out of him," 
and he wrote another letter recalling the first, 
which arrived too late, but fell into the hands of 
his excellent wife, who immediately rushed to the 
capital and called upon me. I was then secretary 
of the senate. I knew the gallant soldier who had 
been misled by this delusive doctrine, and together 
with his wife, called upon Mr. Lincoln, and asked 
the restoration of the officer. That great man 
always receptive and forgiving, and indulgent, 
seeing the case through the clear eyes of his honest 
nature, placed himself at once in the position of 
the impulsive soldier, and said, " I can do little, 
because his place has been filled, but this I will do: 
I will nominate him for a lower grade, and you 
must see that the Senate confirms him." It was a 
long struggle, and for two long days and nights in 
midsummer the confirmation of this officer was 
doubtful. There was very little mercy then for 
such mistakes. Many of the Southern officers had 
gone over to the Confederacy. Some were foolish 
enough to accompany their resignation with bitter 
abuse of the government, and even in my official 
household I found men, still my friends, who 
would not take the oath of allegiance, and rather 
than take it, fled at midnight into the hostile lines. 
But actuated by that spirit which has always 



68 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

animated me, I labored for the confirmation of my 
friend, and with the aid of Ben. Wade and 
Charles Sumner, secured it. I cannot, of course, 
reveal what took place in the executive session of 
the United States Senate, but I remember that 
when I came back to my rooms on Capitol Hill 
and found there the family and children and 
relatives of the mistaken soldier, I was rewarded 
for my exertions by their abundant gratitude. 
And to complete this pleasant incident, the re- 
stored officer is now on the retired list, one of the 
most distinguished soldiers in the regular service. 
When Charles Sumner startled the country by 
his bold declaration in favor of the destruction of 
all battle flags and mottoes, intended to perpet- 
uate the memories of the civil war, he proved he 
had not read history in vain. And I can well 
remember the impression that magnificent mag- 
nanimity excited among all thoughtful men. It 
is in view of such a fact, that I recoil from 
an elaborate recapitulation of the events of the 
campaigns, in which Gen. Hancock distinguished 
himself Nearly all our histories have been writ- 
ten in such periods of passion, and still so abound in 
invective, that I am tempted to a itiore philosoph- 
ical review ; and indeed it is hardly possible in 
such a biography as this, to go over the tragic 
events of the past, so recent, without renewing 
unprofitable and tormenting memories. And there 
are still so many disputes between the con- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK 69 

federates themselves, as to their part in the great 
drama, and so many controversies and court-mar- 
tials between the Union officers and men, that I 
refrain from any full and technical description of 
battles, which may only revive disputes, and 
encourage animosities. 

Gen. Hancock was promoted on November 30th, 
1863, a Major in the regular army, for his meri- 
torious conduct in Yorktown, Virginia, having 
previouf^ly shown conspicuous gallantry in other 
brisk engagements. 

HANCOCK WAS SUPERB THAT DAY. 

I remember the battle of Williamsburgh as if 
it were yesterday. It was an initial fight and an 
initial victory, preceding the marvelous alterna- 
tion of defeat and triumph, a sort of unconscious 
vestibule of the long conflict that lay in the 
future. It was here that Hancock made that 
brilliant charge that must forever associate his 
name with peerless valor. 

In the battle of Williamsburgh, the enemy had 
massed a strong force on his front and had made 
several chasms in his nearest ranks. Riding to 
the centre and quietly passing the words "fix 
bayonets," he paused at the chosen point, waved 
his hat, and gave the memorable order to his 
soldiers, "gentlemen, charge." The brilliancy with 
which that courteous order was obeyed can never 
be forgotten. The enemy was swept before it 



70 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

like chaflP before the whirlwind. Officers, men, 
horses, and artillery, were borne back in confusion 
and dismay, rendering the rout of the foe one of the 
most signal ever witnessed on the field in any war. 
The enemy was flanked on their left and rolled 
over the earth like a parchment scroll. This 
striking movement was made on a stormy night in 
a drenching rain. Morning rose with a bright 
and bracing air, but the enemy had fled. Count 
De Paris, one of the sons of King Louis Philippe, 
who has written a splendid history of our civil 
war, witnessed that brilliant achievement. The 
leader on the opposite side was Gen. Longstreet, 
who had been a lieutenant with Hancock in some 
of the several fights in Mexico ; and another con- 
federate commander was Early, who also had been 
his fellow-officer in that same war. This brilliant 
success of Hancock was gained with the loss of not 
more than 20 killed and wounded, but the falling 
back of the enemy gave to the Union Army a 
thousand wounded and three hundred uninjured 
rebel prisoners ; seventy-one large guns were cap- 
tured, many tents, and a great amount of ammuni- 
tion. 

The relations between President Lincoln and 
General Hancock were always friendly, and na- 
turally so. Lincoln's chief sentiment was an all- 
pervading desire to bring the Southern States back 
into the Union; and although Hancock never 
talked politics, the fact that he was known to be a 




Battle of Seven Pines and Fair Oaks. 




Battle-field of the Seven Pines. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 73 

Democrat made him particularly acceptable to the 
great President. Hancock was very young at the 
time he was placed in his command on the Penin- 
sula, but his manly support of the government in 
California made him a very interesting person to 
Mr. Lincoln, and while other more prominent 
generals were involved in political discussions, this 
young soldier was content to listen to what his 
elders had to say. It is well, at this time, to re- 
call these interesting facts, not only for the sake 
of history, but to show that the policy of con- 
ciliation was the guiding star of Abraham Lin- 
coln's whole administration. He never concealed 
it, and if he were living to-day, he would be pre- 
cisely in the line with such advanced magnanimous 
statesmen as insist that the time for extreme mea- 
sures has long since passed away, and that nothing 
is necessary to restore the South to full companion- 
ship and confidence with the North, but to fall 
back upon the deathless example of the martyred 
President. It is strange how his moderate course 
has won upon the consciences of men ; it is in- 
teresting how all merely radical measures have 
fallen into disuse. 

Men of Mr. Lincoln's first cabinet, like Seward, 
Chase and Wells, however at the beginning of 
the war they may have favored extreme mea- 
sures, soon came to take more comprehensive and 
rational grounds, and although most of these men 
are dead, yet together with their contemporaries, 



74 LIFE AND PUBLIC CABEEB OF 

Sumner, Fenton, Greeley, Trumbull, the three 
Blairs, the father, Francis P., and his sons, Mont- 
gomery and Frank, and Eli Thayer, one after ano- 
ther, they finally agreed that there could be no last- 
ing peace between the South and the North unless 
we made allowances for the peculiarities of society, 
the terrible accidents of carpet-bag rule, and the es- 
sential unpreparednessof the suddenly manumitted 
colored race; and precisely as these influences 
operated upon Republicans, such as I have named, 
precisely as they swiftly served to modify Northern 
sentiment, so in time they controlled and changed^ 
alike the thoughts and actions of reflecting men in 
the South. There is, therefore, as much dif- 
ference between the two great political parties in 
the United States to-day as there was between 
these same two great parties and the organizations 
from which they sprung twenty years before the. 
beginning of the rebellion. Nobody believes in the 
savage remedies and revenges and retaliations that 
were so popular during the civil war, or if there 
is such a conviction, it is confined to the mere 
tricksters of party, who still hope to fan the dying 
embers of hate into a flame for the purpose of 
plunder, and the greed of power. 

If the men who down to the last insisted upon 
the merciless punishment of the South were among 
us to-day, they would be startled by the changed 
conditions of society, by the great influences which 
make peace, not only the order of the day, but the 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 75 

surest method to promote and to perpetuate 
national prosperity. The South so fully yields 
to the justice, to the inviolability of the abolition 
of human slavery, to the necessity and the irre- 
pealability of the new amendments to the national 
constitution, and to the fact that universal suffrage 
could not be resisted, as a part of the bargain to 
secure universal amnesty, that there is no man 
bold enough to undertake to disturb these sacred 
covenants at this hour. In fact the country to-day 
stands precisely where Abraham Lincoln desired 
to place it, and if he could have fashioned the sub- 
sequent policy of administration, or if he could 
have commanded the settlements upon which we 
are all now resting, in advance of his death, they 
could' not be more in accordance with his example. 
Gen. Hancock, as an early disciple of Abraham 
Lincoln, as one whom he frequently consulted, 
regarding him rather as a young protege than as 
one of the politicians and statesmen at the other 
end of the capital, is therefore the candidate who, 
more effectually than any other, embodies the 
policy of peace, justice, generosity and forgiveness, 
so wonderfully illustrated in the life and death of 
our martyred Chief Magistrate. 

Hancock's appearance in battle. 

In all these struggles, in 1861 and 1862, General 
Hancock had necessarily to win his conspicuous 
position by complete subordination, and by con- 



76 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

tinuouSj and arduous and active service. When 
General McClellan used the phrase describing 
his bearing at Williamsburg, " Hancock was 
superb/' he gave the keynote to many subse- 
quent compliments and commendations ; and per- 
haps his picturesque appearance induced the 
country to adopt a word, which that splendid orator, 
my friend Mr. Dougherty, employed with such 
effect at Cincinnati, when he nominated Hancock 
for the Presidency on the 24th of June, 1880. His 
erect and commanding carriage and his classic 
personality make him not only an object of in- 
terest to the stranger, but had much to do with 
his signal influence over his troops. He always 
remained mounted on the battle-field, and no 
one who ever saw him on such occasions could 
forget his knightly figure and chivalric bearing, as 
he rode along the lines encouraging his men to 
stand fast and give no ground. 

Before the resistless sortie at Williamsburg, Han- 
cock was comparatively an unknown subordinate, 
but after that, his name was heard from Maine to- 
California. Marshal Macdonald, at Wagram, did 
not do a more wonderful thing, than when Han- 
cock dashed forward on his horse, with head bared, 
swinging his hat and shouting to his men, " For- 
ward ! ' Forward ! For God's sake, forward !" On 
came the shouting, firing, confident Confederates. 
It seemed madness to attempt to stop them. But not 
a second intervened when his own brigade saw 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 77 

Hancock blazing before them; then they followed 
with a thundering shout that drowned the crack- 
ling musketry, and with lowered bayonets, moving 
along with the line, as perfect as though the men 
were on parade, drove the enemy, won the fight, 
and settled the destinies of the day. And it is 
casting no reflection on other Generals to say that 
four out of five of them would not have crossed 
that ravine with such a force as Hancock had 
with him to meet the fierce impetuosity of the 
enemy. 

It must not be forgotten that this was the initial 
period of our civil conflict, and that many of the 
soldiers who were most censured, among others 
General McClellan, fell before the criticism of the 
war, and before the over-anxiety of the people to 
hasten the overthrow of the Confederates. Gene- 
ral Hancock expected these difficulties, perhaps 
on account of his extreme youth, but this gave 
him facilities for trial and for self examination ; 
and thus while McClellan and others were suffer- 
ing from their somewhat sudden pre-eminence, 
Hancock was, so to speak, unconsciously schooling 
himself for a great destiny. It is the experience 
of all humanity, that men must grow into great- 
ness like trees into stature. His subsequent 
conspicuous services at Golding's Farm, Garnett's 
Hill, White Oak Swamp, and other engagements, 
during the seven days fight, closed with the 
victory of Malvern Hill. 



78 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAEEEB OF 

The manner of Hancock in battle has been 
frequently described. He was always among 
his men, riding up and down his line of battle, 
encouraging them by voice and by example, 
sharing their danger and exposing himself more 
than themselves. He was always at the critical 
point at the right moment of time. The soldiers 
knew they were fighting under his eye, the eye of 
one who never knew fear himself and would toler- 
ate it in no one else. On the 28th of June, 1862, 
at Garnett's Hill, Hancock was again heavily en- 
gaged, as he was at Savage Station on the 29 th, 
and at White Oak Swamp on July 30th, of the 
same year. In this latter engagement his brigade 
sustained, without flinching until ordered to fall 
back, the fire of sixty pieces of artillery, from a 
position on the other side of a ravine. The 
enemy could not be attacked, and no reply, 
except by two or three of the Union batteries, 
could be made to their tremendous bombardment. 
General Hancock's brigade held their position 
throughout the day, repelling the infantry attacks 
of the enemy successfully until the immense 
wagon trains of our retreating army were out of 
the way. 

Gen. McClellan, the President and Congress, for 
these distinguished services, promoted Hancock 
to the rank of Major-General of volunteers, and 
bre vetted him as major, lieutenant-colonel and col- 
onel in the regular army, and the words of these 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 79 

honors were for " gallant and meritorious conduct 
in the Peninsula Campaign." 

After this, the campaign against Kichmond was 
temporarily abandoned and the army of the 
Potomac transferred from Harrison's Landing to 
the north. Hancock took part in the campaign in 
the ensuing August and September, having been 
moved to Centre ville to the support of Pope. He 
commanded his brigade at South Mountain, when 
McClellan was restored to the command of the 
army of the Potomac. He was eminently distin- 
guished in the victory of Antietam, and was placed 
in control of the first division of the second army 
corps, when the gallant Richardson fell mortally 
wounded. After the retreat of Lee across the 
Potomac, Hancock led the advance from Harper's 
Ferry to Charleston, striking the enemy's line, and 
driving him with sharp fighting. He moved with 
his division back to Fredericksburg, and on De- 
cember 13tli took part in the desperate assault on 
Mayre's Heights. In this terrible encounter he 
seemed to bear a charmed life ; he came out of it 
slightly wounded, but with his uniform perforated 
with the enemy's bullets. When Gen. Hooker 
made his calamitous attempt on Lee's lines at 
Chancellorville, in May, 18G3, Gen. Hancock had 
some hard work to do. His division was unmoved 
amid the ruin that followed the rout of the eleventh 
corps ; he was among the last to leave the field, 
retiring in splendid condition, and forming the 



80 LJFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

rear guard of the defeated army. Hancock's 
division repelled every attack of the enemy, and 
often were opposed to many times their number. 
As usual he would ride among his men, holding 
them by his presence. He received no wound, hav- 
ing however his horse shot under him. A short time 
after he was put in command of the second corps, 
in which for nine months he had been a division 
commander. Great was the rejoicing of all the 
officers and privates when this tribute was paid to 
him by the government ; and it came in time, 
occurring on the retirement of Gen. Couch on the 
10th of June. 

PREPARATIONS FOR THE DEATH GRAPPLE. 

Now both sides were preparing for the death 
grapple. Lee was starting on his long threatened 
invasion of the North, and the race between two 
of the grandest armies of the world began for 
Washington and perhaps Philadelphia. At no pe- 
riod of our history were so many points threatened 
at once by an invading army. Forty millions of 
people stood by like spectators on surrounding 
ramparts, watching the unparalleled conflict about 
to occur in the unrivaled amphitheatre, the lovely 
valleys of Adams County, Pa. It was not yet 
known where the tragic duel would take place, 
but the combatants and the audience, the armed 
thousands, and the unarmed millions, the native 
and the foreigner, soon saw that v/hoever won the 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 81 

mastery at Gettysburg would have the control of 
the proud future. At first the solicitude was pain- 
ful in Baltimore and in Washington. But soon 
these vast opposing columns, began to converge 
to a point on the main road through Cumberland 
valley, which crosses the Susquehanna at Columbia, 
runs along the valleys of Lancaster, and again 
through the magnificent rolling country of Chester 
County. The objective point began to appear, and 
Philadelphia, the second great capital of our coun- 
try, was the prize for which the Confederates were 
aiming; and it would require all the sl^ill and re- 
sources of the Union army to rescue it from such a 
fate. The change in the command of the Union 
army, by which Hooker was superseded by Meade, 
added to the joy of the enemy, as an indication 
of weakness and uncertainty in the administra- 
tion. 

Before this act in the great drama of our civil 
war opened, I was in Washington, and had varied 
occasions to meet and confer v/ith President Lin- 
coln, Mr. Seward and Secretary Chase. There 
was no doubt in their minds that the success of 
the confederates at Gettysburg, would be the fall 
of Washington, the surrender of Baltimore, their 
occupation of Philadelphia, and possibly the loss 
of the great city of New York. All these men were 
thoughtful and conservative; indeed the weight 
of their responsibilities made them moderate. 
There was no room in their hearts for revenge or 



82 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

for rhetoric. The peril of the country was never 
more portentous ; the government itself hung sus- 
pended upon the events of a few days ; and if in 
that hour, while Grant was environing Vicksburg, 
Porter with his fleets hanging on the Southerri 
coast. New Orleans having just surrendered to our 
arms, the flag of the confederacy had risen over 
the flag of the Union at Gettysburg, the sun of the 
American Republic would in all probability have 
gone down forever. These were hopeful men also. 
I had seen Mr. Lincoln, when our hosts were fall- 
ing around him like leaves in October, when despair 
had settled upon our councils, and the confederates 
were rejoicing at the prospects of our national 
overthrow, and I never saw him give way. He 
rested so supremely upon the justice of our cause, 
that even in the midnight of general despair, he 
saw the star of hope, and never let go his hold 
upon the returning reason of the South. But on 
that day, a week before the great contest took 
place at Gettysburg, while there was confidence 
and courage, and a supreme reliance upon God 
Almighty, there was the evident conviction that 
the decisive hour had come. 

What, if at that time, somebody had suggested to 
Lincoln that he could not trust his great Generals, 
because they had been reared in the Democratic 
church? Bear in mind that Meade, and Rey- 
nolds, and Sickles, and Crawford, and Hancock 
were all Democrats, so far as politics had entered 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 83 

into their patriotism. They had been reared as 
Democrats ; Meade was a Southern man, with the 
best feelings of home towards the South ; John 
Reynolds, the father of John F. Reynolds, had been 
the editor of the old Democratic organ, The Lan- 
caster Journal, when James Buchanan left the 
Federal party and joined the Jackson party, fifty 
years before. General Hancock never concealed 
his political faith, and General Sickles had been 
the Democratic Representative in Congress of New 
York, for j^ears. It is true, that was not the hour 
to think of the politics of our fighting men, but 
had that thought been suggested, it would have 
dislocated and demoralized the army, and the Con- 
federates would have triumphed; but it never was 
breathed to Mr. Lincoln. The men who talk of 
Hancock's democracy as a crime to-day, were un- 
known in 1863. 

If this was the sentiment in time of war, of 
highest and truest statesmanship, why shall we 
not make it the sentiment in time of peace, when 
in addition to the forgiveness of our own people, 
we are called upon to unite our republic ? 

I wrote these words from Washington to the 
Philadeljpliia Press, over my own name at that time, 
June 2d, 1863, " This is the Republic's hour of anx- 
iety. The war has moved and shifted over moun- 
tains and rivers, until now it is converged upon the 
borders of a free state. It is a matter of general 
information that Robert E. Lee and his followers 



84 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

have set forth on the task of invading Pennsylva- 
nia, and they are now in northern Maryland, and 
the field of Antietam is at this time, in all proba- 
bility, the bivouac of the Confederate army. Their 
advance guard is in Pennsylvania, and the beautiful 
valley of the Cumberland is now channeled and 
torn with the heel of an invading army. I do not 
care to read events as a mathematician, or an en- 
gineer, and therefore, I must say that the time 
has come when the people of the North must rise 
up from maps and books, and look at these events 
as grievous dangers. For the present, our hope is 
in the valor of the army of the Potomac, and the 
volunteers in and around Harrisburg. I believe 
they will be able to stay this tide and turn it 
back ; but if they fail — and men as numerous and 
as brave have failed before — Philadelphia and 
New York will afford an easy and magnificent 
booty." 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 85 



CHAPTER III. 

HAISI cock's genius FOR SEIZING THE OPPORTUNITY. 

IT will be perceived that Hancock had to fight 
his way to fame. Older officers were in command 
when he came, burning to win the l^i^urel, and even 
the brilliant success he had already achieved, his 
individual courage and unprompted inspiration were 
not always visible through the conflicts of others ; 
and therefore, not having much patronage at court, 
so to speak, and never electioneering among the 
busy partisans of the capital, he was impelled to 
that isolated policy which made what he did so 
marked and so original that it could not escape 
notice, and rapidly won the admiration of the 
impartial public, and all judicial observers. 

The invasion of Pennsylvania was the idea of 
General Eobert E. Lee himself, the confederate 
chief; and Hancock's part in repelling it, after his 
brave record in McClellan's army, was one of those 
opportunities which never come to any but brave 
and bold men. He was still subordinate, but the 
death of General John F. Reynolds, on the first 



86 LIFE AND PUBLIC CABEEB OF 

day of the battle of Gettysburg, gave Ran cock 
one supreme command, and enabled him to decide 
the fortunes of a desperate struggle. 

Here let me for a moment dwell upon the new 
argument of the enemies of General Hancock, the 
partisans who insist that Hancock deserves none 
of the high consideration claimed for him, because 
he did nothing more than his duty, and because 
also General Garfield did the same ! It is the 
evil practice of these times, that men at one 
interval, spontaneous in awarding unspeakable 
honors to those who serve them, soon fall from 
this generous tone and begin the work of depre- 
ciation and contrast. Hence it is, that whereas 
the whole body of the people of Pennsylvania un- 
conditionally awarded to General Hancock the 
praise of having saved the stricken field on the 3d 
of July, 1863, since his name has been associated 
with the presidency, they not only boast of their 
desire to forget that he ever fought for the govern- 
ment at all, or if he did that the only effect of his 
behavior was to lose his citizenship in his native 
state, but finally that he did nothing but his duty 
and that others had done better or as well. These 
men seem to forget that opportunity, after all an 
incalculable advantage, is nothing unless instantly 
improved, unless genius sees the vital point and 
knows exactly where to strike. Fortunately for 
Hancock, to use General Grant's very last remark 
in reference to him, he was not only a gallant 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK: 87. 

fighter but he made few mistakes and encountered 
rare defeats : " He was a man who never faltered 
in the performance of his duty, and seldom, if 
ever, made a blunder." 

History shows that Hancock always improved 
his opportunity, in what seemed to be the fatal 
hour. He always struck when the enemy seemed 
about to win. Mark his decisive and prompt action, 
when he quietly directed his men to "fix bayonets" 
and as swiftly rushed them forward as the enemy 
were shouting what they supposed their resist- 
less cry of triumph, and mark again other op- 
portune moments on other historic fields. He 
had to win his spurs very slowlj. He was rarely 
the favorite of party or administration. He 
preserved his subordination to his superiors, and 
maintained the kindliest relations to his men. 
He had little else to help him but his own 
courage, his experience, patriotism, and the steady 
friendship of Abraham Lincoln. 

Many opportunities are presented to public men, 
soldiers and statesmen, and often neglected. 
Henry Clay was the victim of lost opportunities; 
if he had been nominated for President in 1840, 
he would have won the day. Daniel Webster 
was another victim of lost opportunities; if he 
had identified himself bravely with the Democratic 
party in 1830, when for a moment he stood by 
Andrew Jackson, on the proclamation against 



88 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

nullification, he would probably have been the 
democratic president, and elected instead of 
Martin Yan Buren, in 1836. Daniel S. Dickin- 
son would have been nominated as the democratic 
candidate in 1852, in place of Franklin Pierce^ 
had he not, at the critical moment, magnani- 
mously declined the honor tendered to him. 
William H. Seward would have been nominated 
as the republican candidate for president in 
1860, but ibj his quarrel with Horace Greeley. 
James Buchanan himself, could have saved the 
country from the terrible catastrophe of civil war, 
if, in 1858, he had bravely repudiated the Lecomp- 
ton fraud, and trusted himself to the support of 
the proud and chivalric men of the South. Hun- 
dreds of similar instances could be found in 
history. Hancock seemed to have the intuitive 
gift of appearing at the right moment, or striking 
at the crisis, and of being called for when every 
one else seemed to have failed or fallen. It re- 
mains for unjust and malignant politicians, them- 
selves, at the time he rendered the vital and the 
saving service to his countrj^^, clamorous to be first 
to approve and applaud, now to show how bad, 
busy, and brutal they can be ! forgetting not only 
their selfish justice to him in July of 1863, but 
trying to show that the people were as ungrateful 
as themselves. How utterly illogical such malig- 
nity ! These men not only forgot the most conspic- 
uous bravery, and the most unspeakable unselfish- 




Hospital at Fair Oaks 







Bridge over the Chickahominy. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 91 

ness, bat they possess that dangerous art given to 
small minds, the art of finding the most trifling ex- 
cuses for the most appalling treachery. In one 
breath they swept away the whole of Grant's re- 
cord, on the foolish pretext that he wanted to be 
chosen President for a third term. And in satisfy- 
ing themselves with this pretext, they really secure 
a large degree of party sympathy, and at the same 
time carry their own malignity ^o far, as before 
the close of the contest in Chicago, in 1880, to 
induce many people, the same now who clamor 
against Hancock, to believe that Grant had done 
nothing more for his country than any other man 
could have done ! 

The great dramatic philosopher, Shakspeare, 
while illustrating the vice of ingratitude, refers, in 
better phrase than I can use, to the ease with 
which, when a man desires to do a mean and un- 
manly thing, he can provide himself with a phil- 
osophy to justify his guilt. Eeasons for wrong are 
as plenty in his path as blackberries. 

THE LOST OPPORTUNITY OF THE LOST CAUSE. 

But no men engaged in a great movement ever 
lost so many opportunities as the authors and 
leaders of the Lost Cause. Tracing their emo- 
tions in the light of their successes and defeats, 
there is something inexpressibly sad in the over- 
throw of the great expectations with which they 
entered upon their stupendous attempt to sever the 



92 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

American Republic. The period for bitterness and 
recrimination has passed, let us hope forever, but 
there is still left a valuable philosophy in their ex- 
ample, valuable alike to us and them. It is no 
part of my province, in recalling the story of one of 
the great actors on the Union side, and indeed it 
would be impossible to do it in so short a space of 
time, if it were my province, to recapitulate all the 
vast advantages that destiny placed in the hands 
of the Confederates, and which fate took away 
from them. They had many rare auxiliaries, enthu- 
siastic troops, scientific leaders, brave and reck- 
less, prudent and sagacious leaders, many of them 
whose lives had been spent in their own state legis- 
latures and in the Congress of the United States, 
many men of large wealth and culture. And while 
they fought on their own soil, with an accurate 
topographical knowledge of all the byways, and 
passes, and hills, and roads, and mountains, yet 
from the first what they won was only temporarily 
won ; what they occupied was brie,fly held, and at 
last for every step forward they were forced to 
take two backward. It was the lost cau?e from 
the beginning, a summer of bright hopes, a winter 
of exhausted opportunities. 

A library could be filled with all that has been 
written about Gettysburg, and to this day there is 
much more contest in Confederate circles in regard 
to the motives, mistakes, and achievements of the 
leading men than there is in the North ; and 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 93 

naturally very many estrangements and enmities 
have been the result among men, who began by 
fighting in a common cause, and closed by quarrel- 
ing in an uncommon way. In fact there is always 
difiiculty in describing a battle. Those who min- 
gle in the fray are too much occupied in taking 
other persons' lives and saving their own, to gather, 
much less retain the evidences of the general 
action, while the mere observer, be he never so vigi- 
lant and careful, can at the best comprehend only 
a part of a great scheme of strife ; and it is me- 
morable that those most competent to judge are in 
nearly every case most silent. The true soldier 
never boasts, and hates to be tantalized by talk, 
recoiling as much from the gossip of others as he 
shudders at the effort to make himself a gossip. 
Grant is almost costive in his military conversa- 
tions ; and Meade, a wonderful colloquist, became 
almost saturnine when called upon to speak of 
himself 

The incident related of Wellington, who indig- 
nantly refused to touch a snuff-box made for him 
from Napoleon's arm chair, unless it might be con- 
sidered that he displayed the trophies of Waterloo, 
is altogether characteristic of his class. If therefore 
I commit some mistakes natural to such a confusion 
of tongues, and to such a medley of claims and to 
such a catalogue of quarrels, I will be no worse off 
than those who have longer time to weigh their 
standard stories of the war. 



94 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

As William Swinton expresses it in his brilliant 
" Twelve Decisive Battles of the War," " Gettys- 
burg is itself the real high water mark of the- re- 
bellion. For not only was the invasion in a geo- 
graphical sense the most forward and salient leap 
of the Confederate army, but it was upon that 
field that the star of the Confederacy, reaching the 
zenith, turned by swift and headlong plunges to- 
ward the nadir of outer darkness and collapse." 

The Confederates were in the highest spirits be- 
fore they determined to advance their standard 
upon the soil of Pennsylvania. Fredericksburg 
and Chancellorsville are simply synonymous of 
Union disaster and gloom. ' My God ! my God ! 
when will this terrible slaughter cease,' was the 
exclamation of Abraham Lincoln when the details 
of the terrible slaughter of Hooker, in 1863, were 
brought to him. And it is natural to conceive 
how, as one side was disappointed and almost des- 
pairing, the other should be exhilarated beyond 
expression at such a time. The Confederate ma- 
noeuvres, preparatory to the advance upon Pennsyl- 
vania, were silent and nearly successful. So rapid 
and masterly had been this forward and skillful 
detour, that the brave General Hooker, though 
eminently sagacious in many of his vigilant opera- 
tions against the advancing enemy, disappointed at 
the refusal of the Government to allow him to 
evacuate Harper's Ferry, requested to be relieved 
from the command of the army. And on the 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 95 

night of the 27th of June, General George Gordon 
Meade was awakened from sleep in his tent, near 
Frederick, Maryland, by the message from Wash- 
ington appointing him to the command vacated by 
Hooker. This fine soldier never had full justice 
done to him by the Republican leaders, or the 
bureaucracy at Washington •, never until the 
black mantle of death was covered over him, 
when, as is too often the case, criticism and doubt 
were lost in the sorrow and sympathy that gene- 
rally come too late for the brave man who falls 
for his country. There is hardly a soldier of the 
Republic, with a few exceptions, who has not had 
to pass the same ordeal. Censorship, busy with 
the reputation of the heroes of great perils, doing 
its bad work al a distance, rarely stops save at 
the portals of the grave. 

I remember an anecdote that Meade himself re- 
lated to me while he was in command of the army 
of the Potomac. He had a visitation from quite 
a caucus of the blood and thunder politicians from 
Washington at his head-quarters ; men who had 
been industrious in circulating the story that he 
was not loyal, because he had sympathized with 
the South in olden times, and because in later 
days he had not rushed forward to denounce the 
South when the war broke out. These poli- 
ticians came upon him suddenly, and after sub- 
jecting him to such queries as were rather common 
in what is called ' the Committee on the Conduct 



96 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

of the War/ one of tliem pointed to the distant 
Confederate lines, which could be studied with a 
field-glass and reached by modern cannon at a long 
range. There was silence on both sides, save now 
and then a dropping shot from the picket lines, 
and a rapid movement of some deploying column. 
* You are very quiet to-day, General,' was the re- 
mark of one of the politicians. ' Yes,' he replied, 
^ we are quiet, but wary ; still, but vigilant. We 
are both apparently sleeping, but we have one eye 
open upon each other.' ' Why, then, do you not 
wake them up?' was the answer. ^ Well, gentle- 
men,' was Meade's reply, ^if you desire it, you shall 
be accommodated.' And accordingly he gave the 
word, opened upon the enemy with some of his 
largest guns, and instantly came an angry reply. 
The bevy of politicians watched the curving shells 
as they coursed along the sky with doubtful inter- 
est, until one seemed about to descend upon the 
very spot where they stood, when the noisiest of 
the party broke for an adjoining thicket, and hid 
himself behind a tree. Most of them, indeed, dis- 
appeared, excepting gallant old Ben Wade, who 
quietly awaited the explosion and did not move 
from the. side of General Meade. 

If you will return to the reports and letters of 
the Confederate Generals who have written since 
the battle of Gettysburg you Avill discover that 
there was almost as much mystery about the 
movements of the Union forces as there was in 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 97 

regard to the evolutions of the Confederates. Both 
sideSj before they got face to face in the hills and 
valleys around Gettysburg, were, so to speak, feel- 
ing for each other, and both sides finally discovered 
that destiny had fixed the spot of conflict for 
them, rather than that they had selected it for 
themselves. 

To quote Swinton again : " Mark now the curi- 
ous conjunction of events that was bringing the 
two hostile masses, though quite ignorant of each 
other's movements, toward each other, till unex- 
pectedly they found themselves grappling in dead- 
ly wrestle, in an obscure hamlet of western Penn- 
sylvania ! Meade thought the Confederates were 
pressing northward to the Susquehanna, where he 
knew of the presence of Ewell's corps at York and 
Carlisle; Lee thought the Union army was march- 
ing westward from Frederick." 

All the writers on both sides, strangers, French 
and English, all the officers. Confederate and 
Union, however they may have differed on other 
points, were unanimous on one, — the Southern suc- 
cess at Gettysburg was the capture of Washington 
City, the possession of Philadelphia, the spoliation 
of the districts between the Susquehanna and the 
Schuylkill, and the fact that had the Confederates 
triumphed the Union was at an end. In making 
this assertion I am as safe and accurate as if I 
were to declare that as I write these words Inde- 
pendence Hall is within the sound of my voice, 



98 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

and the grave of Benjamin Franklin within five 
minutes walk of m^j studio. Residing alternately 
near Washington City, the Union capital, and the 
city of Philadelphia, during all these months, and 
particularly while Washington was threatened, and 
Philadelphia, from the 1st to the 4th of July, in a 
state of universal solicitude, if not terror, I am 
perhaps a good witness of what seemed to impress 
all other minds. I am as good a witness also 
against the new assumption that we are not in- 
debted to General Hancock, fully honored by the 
unanimous tributes of his own associates in arms, 
and by the concessions of the men he defeated on 
the 3d day of July, for having done the work 
which filled the hearts even of the Republican 
office-holders of Philadelphia with what at first 
was a very honest sort of gratitude. 

I have elsewhere described the solicitude and 
terror of Philadelphia from the 1st of July, 1863, 
to the morning of our national anniversary, Satur- 
day, the 4th of July, 1863. It was a subject for 
the pencil of as great a painter of multitudes as 
Louis David, the Frenchman, or William Powell 
Frith, the Englishman. Never was a vast popu- 
lace, plunged into such a depth of despair, sud- 
denly elevated to such a height of joy; never 
such transition from the wildest grief to the wild- 
est gratitude. And when these masses, feeling that 
they had been rescued from unspeakable horrors, 
moved as by a common impulse, marched down 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. . 9 9 

Chestnut street to Independence Hall, shouting 
and praying and thanking God for their deliver- 
ance, as from the belfry of that sacred edifice came 
the joyful music of the band, answered on the next 
Sabbath by public thanksgiving and prayer in all 
our churches, the spectacle resembled the stories 
we read of other great cities rescued from fire, fa- 
mine, plague, or the invading foe. 

These are the words I wrote in grateful echo of 
this public sentiment on the Tuesday following, 
June 7, 1863 : 

" Meanwhile the Army of the Potomac, suddenly placed under the 
command of General Meade, whom we are proud to claim as a fellow-cit- 
izen, hastened northward, and fell upon the rash and audacious enemy. 
We know the result. Neither our children^ nor our childreri's children, 
to the remotest generation, shall ever forget it, or fail to remember it with a 
thrill of gratitude and honest pride. The rebels were assailed with unex- 
ampled fury, and the gallant General Reynolds, a Pennsylvania sol-, 
dior, laid down his life. The struggle raged for several days, the losses 
on both sides were fearful, and still the result seemed doubtful. If we 
should fail, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, perhaps New York, 
would be doomed. In this crisis of the nation's fate it was Pennsylvania 
that came to the rescue. IT WAS GENERAL HANCOCK, A PENN- 
SYLVANIAN, WHO SO NOBLY BORE THE BRUNT OF THE 
BATTLE ON CEMETERY HILL." 

What others have said on the same subject 
"will be found m succeeding chapters. General 
Hancock had figured with so much honor in the 
battle of Chancellorsville, that immediately after 
that engagement, in the first week of May, 1863, 
JPresident Lincoln, as commander-in-chief, assigned 
him to the command of his favorite second corps 
in the armv of the United States, each member of 



100 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

which wore the badge the trefoil, or three-leaved 
clover, a peculiar plant called by some "the 
none-such," indicative of rare honor and choice 
ornament in the architecture of the temple of 
fame. 

The battle of Gettysburg opened on the morning 
of Wednesday, the 1st of July. The Union 
cavalry, under the gallant General Buford, took 
position on the hitherside of Willoughby Run, 
about two miles west of Gettysburg. His line was 
drawn up across the Chambersburg road, and as 
Gen. A. P. Hill, with two divisions of his Confed- 
erate corps, approached Gettysburg by the same 
road, the two forces found themselves, about nine 
in the morning on that day, precipitated into 
action. Gen. John F. Reynolds, who had bi- 
vouacked the night before four miles off, was on 
his way to Gettysburg, whither indeed that 
officer, with the leading division of his corps under 
Wadsworth, was moving according to prescribed 
orders, though with little thought of battle in his 
mind. I quote from Swinton. '^By skilful deploy- 
ments, Buford held in check the van of the Con- 
federate force, which as yet consisted only of 
Ileth's division, till Reynolds' with Wadsworth's 
division, arrived at 10 o'clock." Determined to 
bring matters to an immediate issue, Reynolds, 
with animated words, gave the regiment on the 
skirt of the woods, the command to charge, but 
scarcely was this begun, when, struck by a bullet, 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 101 

he fell mortally wounded, dying ere he could be 
removed Jfrora the field. 

" General Eeynolds now rode forward to inspect the field and ascer- 
tain the most favorable line for the disposal of his troops. One or two 
members of his staff were with him. The enemy at that instant poured 
in a cruel musketry fire upon the group of officers ; a bullet struck 
General Eeynolds in the neck, wounding him mortally. Crying out, 
witli a voice that thrilled the hearts of his soldiers : ' Forward ! for 
God's sake forward ! ' he turned for an instant, beheld the order 
obeyed by a line of shouting infantry, and, falling into the arms of 
Captain Wilcox, his aid, who rode beside him, his life went out with 
the words, ' Good God, Wilcox, I am killed I " '— iV. Y. World. 

The news of his death, and the defeat of the 
first day reached us in Philadelphia early on the 
morning of the 2d, adding to the popular gloom, 
and aggravated by ten thousand rumors the intelli- 
gence of the Confederate victory. The death of 
Reynolds and his magnificent dash upon the enemy, 
and the retreat and rout of the Union troops, were 
all precipitated at an unexpected moment, and 
came so rapidly as to induce the belief that the 
enemy would advance, without stop or hindrance, 
to Philadelphia, his proclaimed destination. 

Immediately on the fall of the lamented Rey- 
nolds, Gen. Meade ordered Gen. Hancock to pro- 
ceed to the scene of contest to assume command, 
to examine the ground, and if it should be found 
suitable for battle, the rest of the army should be 
ordered up. Riding forward in all haste, Hancock 
arrived on the field at half-past three. " I found," 
said Hancock, "that, practically, the fight was 



102 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

over for that day. The rear of our columi;!, with 
the enemy in pursuit, was then coming through 
the town of Gettysburg. Gen. Howard was on 
Cemetery Hill, and there had evidently been an 
attempt on his part to stop and form some troops 
there." The magnetism of Hancock was instantly 
felt, " his personal appearance there," says Warren, 
"doing a great deal toward restoring order." 

Fortunately the Confederate commander lost, 
another opportunity here. Had he followed up 
his advantage after the death of Gen. Keynolds, 
nothing could have stopped the realization of his 
hopes. But Gen. Lee himself writes : " It was 
ascertained from the prisoners that we had been 
engaged with two corps of the army formerly com- 
manded by Gen. Hooker, and that the remainder 
of that army, under Gen. Meade, was approaching 
Gettysburg. Without information as to its prox- 
imity, the strong positiiDn which the enemy had 
assumed could not be attacked without danger, 
exposing the four divisions present, already weak- 
ened and exhausted by a long and bloody struggle, 
to overwhelming numbers of fresh troops. General 
Ewell was therefore instructed to carry the hill 
occupied by the enemy, if he found it practicable, 
but to avoid a general engagement until the arrival 
ot the other divisions, which were ordered to hasten 
forward. In the meantime the enemy occupied 
the point which General Ewell designed to seize 
(Gulp's Hill), but in what force could not be ascer- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 103 

tained, owing to the darkness. Under these 
circumstances, it was decided not to attack till the 
arrival of Longstreet." 

The Confederates had moved with so much 
celerity and silence, that nothing could exceed 
their consternation when they found, after this 
first day's fight, that they had been checkmated ; 
and it is reported that they exclaimed : " The army 
of the Potomac ! the army of the Potomac !" as if 
'they felt that here was another, and among the 
last of their greatest opportunities gone. It is a 
curious fact that the lines of Longstreet, under 
Hood, McLaws, Picket, Garnett and Anderson, di- 
rectly in front of Hancock's command, were led by 
Generals, with nearly all of whom I was personally 
acquainted. Barksdale, another Southern man 
that I met in Washington, one of the most active 
in that service, was also in the advance. Cemetery 
Hill— now so appropriately occupied as the site of 
the great National Cemetery of our Union heroes — 
was on his right flank, beyond which was the rebel 
corps of Ewell, under Early and Khodes. In the 
rear was a body of Southern cavalry, commanded by 
the energetic Generals Wade Hampton, W. H. F. 
Lee, and Gen. Jenkins, flanked by several batteries 
of the enemy. Walker's brigade — formerly Stone- 
wall Jackson's — extended, as the battle advanced, 
close to the rear, in front of the 12th Union Corps, 
under Slocum, aided by Geary, Wadsworlh and 
Steinwehr. Sedgwick, with the Sixth Corps, was 



104 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

on Hancock's immediate left and rear, and Dou- 
bleday's Division on the right. 

When, after the death of Gen. Rej^nolds, Gen. 
Hancock arrived, the latter was in command of 
the entire field, and when early, on the morning 
of the 2d of July, General Meade came on the 
ground, he recognized and approved the disposi- 
tion made by Generals Hancock and Howard. The 
whole Union army was at once concentrated at 
Gettysburg. By seven o'clock in the morning of 
that day, the Second Corps, Hancock's immediate 
command, was posted at the front. The distance 
between him and the Confederates^ at this moment, 
w^as a little over a mile. The clangor of trumpets, 
the roll of drums, the tramp of armed men march- 
ing and counter-marching, on both sides, could be 
distinctly heard in the opposing camps. The great 
battle was at hand. 

During the previous afternoon of the first of 
July, Gen. Meade received from Gen. Hancock 
such report of the nature of the ground in the 
neighborhood of Gettysburg, as determined him 
to make a stand there, and therefore, as I have 
said, he ordered all the corps forward, with the 
exception of the 6th Corps, which, having a march 
of thirty-six miles to make, could not arrive till 
after mid-day. But the 2d of July was not decisive. 
Certainly the Confederates had not won and . had 
not improved upon the success of the day pre- 
vious. They had, indeed, driven the accomplished 



WJNFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 105 

Sickles from his advanced position, and he had 
fallen terribly wounded, the peerless Gen. Birney 
having taken command of his corps. But when 
evening fell, it seemed to be universally admitted 
that the next day, Friday, the 3d of July, would 
decide whether the Confederacy should rule the 
country, or ivhether the old flag should continue 
to float over a united people. Such was the ver- 
dict of all observers and actors. 

The number engaged on the Confederate side, at 
this critical moment, is variously estimated. And 
here again we encounter endless controversy and 
dispute from difierent quarters. The Confeder- 
ates, themselves, deny that they had more than 
seventy thousand, while the judgment of all the 
Union experts declaring that, " They numbered, 
when the invasion commenced, — they did not 
number quite so many when it ended, — an efiec- 
tive force of 90,000 infantry, 10,000 cavalry, over 
4,000 artillery, — an aggregate of 105,000 men, of 
all arms." 

It was after mid-day of July 3d, 1863, before any 
serious movement was made on either side. At 
this hour, following a silence more awful than the 
thunders of battle, the Confederate commander 
directed 120 guns to fire against the corps of Han- 
cock. Lee had vainly imagined this to be his 
most favored point of attack, Dashing from be- 
hind the woods of Seminary Kidge, the flower of 
that part ot the enemy's force swept onward to 



106 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

the very muzzles of Hancock's guns. His well- 
tried corps, aided by the 1st Corps and Stannard's 
Vermont Brigade, met the shock with all their 
wonted coolness and courage, and hurled the foe 
back in confusion. 

Having just returned from the battle-field of 
Gettysburg, a more particular account of the pre- 
sent condition of which will be found further on 
in this volume, I copy as the most reliable and 
less technical description of the scene that took 
place at this moment, from the graceful pen of 
William Swinton, in " The Twelve Decisive Bat- 
tles of the War," referring, at the same time, to 
letters and tributes of the same great actors in that 
crowning victory in subsequent pages. And here, 
says Swinton : 

** I cannot resist the opportunity of transcribing from the manuscript 
report of General Hancock, the concise, yet vivid language, in which , 
he describes the great scene that followed — a scene in which he formed 
so distinguished a figure." 

The general plan of Lee for the operations of the 3d of July, re- 
mained unchanged ; but there were some important modifications of 
details. Longstreet had, during* the night before, been reinforced by 
the division of Picket, and it was proposed to make this the centre 
and main substance of the assaulting column. Instead of directing the 
attack against the extreme left of the Union line, posted on the rocky 
summit of Little Round Top, as had been done the day before. Long- 
street determined to hurl his masses against the left centre on Cemetery 
Bidge, holding the two divisions of Hood and McLaws, simply to 
cover the right flank of the advancing lines. To add weight to Pick- 
ett's storming force, it was strengthened on its left by Heth's division 
of Hill's corps, and two brigades (those of Lane and Scale) of Pender's 




Battle of Gaines'S Farm. 




Ruins of Gaines'S Mill. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 109 

division of the same corps, and on the rear of the right flank by Wil- 
cox's brigade of Anderson's division, also of Hill's corps. Such was 
the force prepared for the assault, and it numbered about eighteen 
thousand men. 

In co-operation with this main attack upon the left centre of the 
Union line, it was also proposed that Ewell should renew his efforts 
against the extreme right ; and as that part of his force that had the 
previous evening gained a lodgment within the breast-works on Gulp's 
Hill maintained its foothold during the night, much was hoped from a 
vigorous eflfort at this point. Ewell therefore reinforced Johnston's 
division, which had gained lodgment on Gulp's Hill, with three addi- 
tional brigades. But early in the morning General Meade, having in 
the night returned the Twelfth Gorps to its original position on the 
right, ordered an assault for the purpose of expelling the intrusive force. 
This, after a severe struggle, that continued from before dawn till near 
noon, was at length accomplished ; and as Longstreet was very much 
delayed in forming his dispositions, it came about that when at one 
o'clock he was prepared to move forward, he was compelled to do so 
alone. 

Yet, before the infantry attack should be begun, the Gonfederate com- 
mander resolved to try the effect of a heavy artillery fire. He therefore 
caused one hundred and fifty-five guns to be placed in position along 
the fronts held by Longstreet and Hill, and from this massive enginery 
there opened, at 1 p. m. a prodigious bombardment that was continued 
for near three hours. The fire was vigorously replied to by eighty 
guns placed on Gemetery Hill and the crest of Gemetery Kidge, under 
direction of General Hunt, the chief of artillery. As a spectacle, this, 
the greatest artillery combat that ever occurred on the continent, was 
magnificent beyond description, and realized all that is grandiose in the 
circumstance of war. But in regard to the accomplishment of the pur- 
pose intended by Lee — to-wit, to sweep opposition from the hill slope — 
its effect was inconsiderable. Some damage was done the artillery ma- 
terial, but the troops had excellent cover and suffered but little. Gen- 
eral Lee has indeed noticed in his report that the fire of the Union bat- 
teries slackened towards the close ; but this was because the chief of 



110 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

artillery, wishing to reserve his ammunition for the infantry advance, 
imposed economy on the batteries. 

Out of the smoke-veiled front of Seminary Ridge, at three o'clock of 
the afternoon, emerged, in magnificent array, the double battle-line of 
the Confederates. Not impetuously, at the run or doable quick, as has 
been represented in the overcolored descriptions in which the famous 
charges have been so often painted, but with a disciplined steadiness — 
a quality noticed by all who saw this advance as its characteristic 
feature. The ground to be overpassed by the Confederates in order to 
attain the Cemetery Eidge where the Union battle array was drawn, 
was a perfectly open plain of cultivated fields above a mile in width, 
and as it sloped gradually up to the crest of Cemetery Eidge, it formed 
a natural glacis, and gave the defenders a fair field for the fire of artil- 
lery and musketry. It will, in fact, be dlfiicult for one who shall sur- 
vey the ground to conclude otherwise than that the enterprise of the 
Confederates was hopeless. 

Almost from the start, the assaulting lines came under the fire of the 
Union batteries, and then was seen the efiect of the wasteful use of am- 
munition on the part of the Confederates during the preliminary bom- 
bardment, and on the other hand the good result of the imposed 
economy on the part of the Union artillerists. 

Scarcely had the Confederates moved from their own lines, than the 
fire with which they were greeted began to tell on the integrity of their 
formation. Heth's supporting division, on the left of Pickett; indeed, 
began to waver at the time it was leaving its own lines, and while cross- 
ing a low stone wall behind which they had lain, some already showed 
such trepidation that they were jeered by the reserves that lay behind. 
Then as they became exposed to the fire of artillery from Cemetery Hill, 
the brigade on the left flank hesitated and went back, and from that 
flank there was such a continual wearing away that, by the time the 
assaulting mass had advanced over half the width of the plain, Heth's 
division had broken and disappeared. There was a like result on 
Pickett's right, where the supporting brigade failed to keep up ; so that 
t came about that, for the real storming column, there was left but 
Pickett's division alone. His right experienced the same fire from 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. HI 

Bound Top that had stayed the progress of the supporting brigade on 
that flank, but this did not cause the division to pause, it only caused it to 
double in somewhat towards its left. This brought the point of attack a 
little off from where it was intended, and directly in face of the two re- 
duced and incomplete divisions of Hancock's corps. 

Now let us describe, in Hancock's own words, 
from his manuscript-report, the scene in which he 
formed so distinguished a figure: 

The column pressed on, coming within musketry range without re- 
ceiving immediately our fire, our men evincing a striking disposition to 
withhold it until it could be delivered with deadly effect. Two regi- 
ments of Stannard's Brigade, first corps, which had been posted in a 
little grove in front of and at a considerable angle with the main line, 
first opened with an oblique fire upon the right of the enemy's column, 
which had the effect to make the troops on that flank double in a little 
towards their left. They still pressed on, however, without halting to 
return the fire. The rifled guns of our artillery having fired away all 
their cannister, were now withdrawn to await the issue of the struggle 
between the opposing infantry. Arrived at between two and three 
hundred yards, the troops of the enemy were met by a destructive fire 
from the divisions of Gibbons and Hays, which they promptly returned, 
and the fight at once became fierce and general. In front of Hays's 
division it was not of very long duration ; mowed down by cannister 
from Woodruff's Battery, and by the fire from two regiments judicious- 
ly posted by General Hays in his extreme front and right, and the fire 
of difierent lines in the rear, the enemy broke in disorder, leaving fif- 
teen colors and nearly two thousand prisoners in the hands of this divi- 
sion. Those of the enemy's troops who did not fall into disorder in front 
of this division were moved to the right, and reinforced the line attack- 
ing Gibbons' division. The right of the attacking force having been 
repulsed by Hall's and Harrow's Brigades, of the latter division, assisted 
by the fire of the Vermont regiments already referred to, doubled to its 
left and also reinforced the centre, and thus the attack was in the fullest 



112 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

strenj^th opposite the brigade of General "Webb. This brigade was dis- 
posed in two lines — two regiments. The 69th and 71st Pennsylvania, 
were behind a low stone-wall and slight breastwork hastily constructed 
by them, the remainder of the brigade being behind the crest, some 
sixty paces to the rear, and so disposed as to fire over the heads of those 
in front. When the enemy's line had nearly reached the stone-wall, led 
by General Armistead, the most of that part of Webb's brigade posted 
here abandoned their position, but, unfortunately, did not retreat en- 
tirely. They were immediately, by the personal bravery of General 
Webb and his officers, formed behind the crest before referred to, which 
was occupied by the remnant of that brigade. 

*' Emboldened by seeing this indication of weakness, the enemy pushed 
forward more pertinaciously, numbers of them crossing over the breast- 
work abandoned by the troops. The fight here became very close and 
deadly. The enemy's battle-flags were soon seen waving on the stone- 
wall. Passing at this time. Colonel Devereux commanding the Nine- 
teenth Massachusetts, anxious to be in the right place, applied to me 
for permission to move his regiment to the right and to the front where 
the line had been broken. I granted it, and his regiment and Colonel 
Mallon's, Forty-second New York, on his right, proceeded there at 
once. But the enemy having left Colonel Hall's front, as described 
before, this officer promptly moved his command by the right flank to 
still further reinforce the position of General Webb, and was imme- 
diately followed by Harrow's Brigade. The movement was executed, but 
not without confusion, owing to many men leaving their ranks to fire at 
the enemy from the breastworks. The situation was now very peculiar. 
The men of all the brigades had in some measure lost their regimental 
organization, but individually they were firm. The ambition of individ- 
ual commanders to promptly cover the point penetrated by the enemy, 
the smoke of the battle and the intensity of the close engagement caused 
this confusion. The point, however, was covered. In regular formation, 
our line would have stood four ranks deep. The colors of the difierent 
regiments were now advanced, waving in defiance of the long line of 
battle-flags presented by the enemy. The men pressed firmly after them 
under their energetic commanders and the example of their officers, and 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 113 

after a few moments desperate fighting the enemy were repulsed, throw- 
ing down their arms and finding safety in flight, or throwing themselves 
on the ground to escape our fire. The battle-flags were ours and the 
victory was won. Gibbons' division secured twelve stand of colors, and 
prisoners enough to swell the number captured by the corps to about 
four thousand five hundred." 

Hancock's own stoey of gettysbueg before the 
committee on the conduct of the war, 

WASHINGTON, MARCH 22d, 1864. 

TESTIMONY OF MAJOR-GENEEAL W. S. HANCOCK. 
{Thursday, July 2d, 1863.) 

I soon received an order, dated 1.10 p. m., directing me to proceed to 
the front, and in the event of the death of General Keynolds, or hia 
inability to command, to assume the command of all the troops there, 
consisting of the 1st, 3d, and 11th Corps. (Order appended marked 
A.) I started a little before half past one, turning over the command 
of my corps to General Gibbons, under General Meade's directions. 
General Gibbons was not the next in rank in that corps ; but he was 
the one General Meade directed should assume the command, as he 
considered him the most suitable person for it. 

Several such incidents occurred during that battle. General Meade, 
prior to the battle, showed me or told me of a letter he had received 
from the Secretary of War on this subject. The Government recogni- 
zing the difliculty of the situation, believing that a battle was immi- 
nent, and might occur in one, two, or three days, and not knowing the 
views of General Meade in relation to his commanders, the Secretary 
of War wrote him a note, authorizing him to make any changes in his 
army that he pleased, and that he would be sustained by the President 
and himself. That did not make it legal, because it was contrary to 
the law to place a junior office? over a senior. At the same time it was 
one of those emergencies in which General Meade was authorized, as 
before stated, to exercise that power. I was not the senior of either 
General Howard, of the 11th Corps, or General Sickles, of the 3d Corps. 
My commission bore date on the same day with theirs ; by my prior 



114 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

commission they both ranked me. Of course it was not a very agreea- 
able office for me to fill, to go and take command of my seniors. How- 
ever, I did not feel much embarrassment about it, because I was an 
older soldier than either of them. But 1 knew that legally it was not 
proper, and that if they chose to resist it it might become a very trou- 
blesome matter for the time being. Whether or not General Meade, 
when he gave me the order, knew about this relative rank, I do not 
know. I say this because I have since understood that he did not. 
When I spoke to him about it before departing, however, he remarked 
in substance that he was obliged to use such persons as he felt disposed 
to use ; that in this case he sent me because he had explained his views 
to me, and had not explained them to the others ; that I knew his 
plans and ideas, and could better accord with him in my operations 
than anybody else. I went to Gettysburg, arriving on the ground not 
later than half past three o'clock. I found that, practically, the fight 
was then over. The rear of our column, with the enemy in pursuit was 
then coming through the town of Gettysburg. General Howard was on 
Cemetery Hill, and there had evidently been an attempt on his part to 
stop and form some of his troops there ; what troops he had formed there 
I do not know. I understood afterwards, and accepted it as the fact, 
that he had formed one division there prior to this time. I told Gene- 
ral Howard I had orders to take command in the front. I did not 
show him the orders, because he did not demand it. He acquiesced. 

I exercised the command until evening when General Slocum arrived, 
about 6 or 7 o'clock. His troops were in the neighborhood, for they 
apparently had been summoned up before I arrived, by General Howard 
possibly, as well as the 3d Corps. When General Slocum arrived, he 
being my senior, and not included in this order to me, I turned the 
command over to him. Iri fact I was instructed verbally by General 
Butterfield, Chief of Staff, before I left for the front, that I was to do so. 

When I arrived and took command I extended the lines. I sent 
General Wadsworth to the right to take posession of Ciilp's Hill with 
his division. I directed General Geary, whose division belonged to the 
12th Corps ( its commander. General Slocum, not having then arrived), 
to take possession of the high ground towards Round Top. I made such 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK, 115 

disposition as I thought wise and proper. The enemy evidently believing 
that we were reinforced, or that our whole army was there, discontinued 
their great efforts, and the battle for that day was virtually over. There 
was firing of artillery and skirmishing all along the front, but that was 
the end of that day's battle. By verbal instructions, and in the order 
which I had received from General Meade, I was directed to report, 
after having arrived on the ground, whether it would be necessary or 
wise to continue to fight the battle at Gettysburg, or whether it was 
possible for the fight to be had on the ground General Meade had 
selected. About 4 o'clock p.m., I sent word by Major' Mitchell, aide- 
de-camp to General Meade, that I would hold the ground until dark, 
meaning to allow him time to decide the matter for himself. As soon 
as I had gotten matters arranged to my satisfaction, and saw that the 
troops were being formed again, and I felt secure ; I wrote a note to 
General Meade, and informed him of my views of the ground at 
Gettysburg. I told him that the only advantage which I thought it 
had was that it could be readily turned by way of Emmettsburg, and 
that the roads were clear for any movement he might make. I had 
ordered all the trains back, as I came up, to clear the roads. 

General Meade had directed my corps, the 2d Corps, to march up 
towards Gettysburg, under the command of General Gibbons. When 
I found that the enemy had ceased their operations, I directed General 
Gibbons to halt his corps two or three miles behind Gettysburg, in 
order to protect our rear from any flank movement of the enemy. Then 
my operations in the front being closed, I turned the command over 
to General Slocum, and immediately started to report to General 
Meade in detail what 1 had done, in order to express my views clearly 
to him, and to see what he was disposed to do. I rode back, and foun{i 
General Meade about 9 o'clock. He told me he had received my mes-. 
sages and note, and had decided upon the representations I had made, 
and the existence of known facts of the case, to fight at Gettysburg, 
and had ordered all the corps to the front. That was thes ei^d of 
operations for that day. 

On the third day, in the morning, the enemy and General Slocum 
were a good deal engaged. About one or two o'clock in the afternoon, 



116 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

the enemy commenced a terrific cannonade, from probably one hun- 
dred and twenty pieces of artillery, on the front of the line connecting 
Cemetery liill with Eound Top, the left centre commanded by me. 
That line consisted of the 1st, 2d, and 3d Corps, of which I had the 
general command. I commanded that whole front. General Gibbons 
commanded the 2d Corps in my absence. General Newton the 1st Corps, 
and General Birney the 3d. That cannonade continued for probably 
an hour and a half. The enemy then made an assault at the end of 
that time. It was a very formidable assault, and made, I should judge, 
with about 18,000 infantry. When the columns of the enemy appeared, 
it looked as if they were going to attack the centre of our line ; but, 
after marching straight out a little distance, they seemed to incline a 
little to our left, as if their object was to march through my command, 
and seize Cemetery Hill, which I have no doubt was their intention. 
They attacked with wonderful spirit — nothing could have been more, 
spirited. The shock of the assault fell upon the 2d and 3d divisions of 
the 2d Corps, assisted by a small brigade of Vermont troops, together 
with the artillery of our line, which fired from Round Top to Cemetery 
Hill at the enemy all the way as they advanced whenever they had the 
opportunity. Those were the troops that really met the assault. No 
doubt there were other troops that fired a little, but those were the 
troops that really withstood the shock of the assault, and repulsed it. 
TJie attack of the enemy was met by about six small brigades of our 
troops, and was finally repulsed after a terrific contest at very close 
quarters, in which our troops took about thirty or forty colors and some 
4000 to 5000 prisoners, with great loss to the enemy in killed and 
wounded. The repulse was a most signal one, and that decided the 
battle, and was practically the end of the fight. I was wounded at the 
close of the assault, and that ended my operations with the army for 
that campaign. I did not follow it in its future movements. 

TJiat 'practically ended the fighting of the battle of Gettysburg. There 
w^s no serious fightirjg there after that, save on the left, in an advance 
by a small command of the Pennsylvania Reserves, made very soon 
afterwards and based upon our success. I may say one thing here : I 
think it was probably an unfortunate thing that I was wounded at the 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 117 

time I was, and equally unfortunate that General Gibbons was also 
wounded, because the absence of a prominent commander, who knew 
the circumstances thoroughly at such a moment as that, was a great 
disadvantage. I think that our lines should have advanced immedi- 
ately, and I believe we should have won a great victory. I was very confi- 
dent that the advance would be made. General Meade told me before 
the fight that if the enemy attacked me he intended to put the 5th and 
6th Corps on the enemy's flank ; therefore, when I was wounded and 
lying down in my ambulance and about leaving the field, I dictated a 
note to General Meade, and told him if he would put in the 5th and 6th 
Corps I believed he would win a great victory. I asked him afterwards 
when I returned to the army what he had done in the premises. He 
said he had ordered the movement, but the troops were slow in collect- 
ing, and moved so slowly that nothing was done before night, except 
that some of the Pennsylvania Reserves went out and met Hood's divi- 
sion, it was understood, of the enemy, and actually overthrew it, assisted, 
no doubt, in some measure, by their knowledge of their failure in the 
assault. There were only two divisions of the enemy on our extreme 
left, opposite Round Top, and there was a gap in their line of one mile 
that their assault had left, and I believe if our whole line had advanced 
with spirit it is not unlikely that we would have taken all their artil- 
lery at that point. I think that was a fault ; that we shouLl have 
pushed the enemy there, for we do not often catch them in that position ; 
and the rule is, and it is natural, that when you repulse or defeat an 
enemy you should pursue him ; and I believe it is a rare thing that 
one party beats another and does not pursue him : and I think that on 
that occasion it only required an order and prompt execution. 

I have no doubt the enemy regarded the success of their assault as 
certain, so much so that they were willing to expend all their ammuni- 
tion. They did not suppose that any troops could live under that can- 
nonade ; but they met troops that had been so accustomed to artillery fire 
that it did not have the effect on them that they expected. It was a most 
terrific and appalling cannonade, — one possibly hardly ever paralleled. 

Question. — Was there evef, in any battle of which you have read, 
more artillery brought into action than in that battle ? 



118 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Anisxcer. — I doubt whether there has ever been more concentrated 
upon an equal space and opening at one time. I think there has been 
more artillery engaged in many battles, but do not believe there has 
been more- upon both sides concentrated on an equal space. 

Question. — You did not follow the army from there ? 

Answer. — No, sir ; I left the field the moment the fight was over. 

Question. — When did you join the army again ? 

Answer. — I did not join it again until sometime in December, wlien 
active operations had ceased. I was then ordered by the Secretary of 
War into the States from whence the regiments of my corps came to fill 
them up by recruitment, and I am now on my return to the army. 

Question. — But, with equal numbers, you could not hesitate to attack 
the enemy anywhere under equal circumstances ? 

Answer. — No, sir, I would not. In fact there is no finer army, if as 

fine, in existence in the world than the Army of the Potomac. The 

troops will do anything if they are only ordered. If they have not made 

this or that attack it is because their commanders did not order them to 

make it. 

Headquakters Army or the Potomac, 

July 1st, 1S63, 1:10 p. M. 
Commanding Officer, 2d Corps (General Hancock) : 

The Major-General commanding has just been informed that General 
Eeynolds has been killed or badly wounded. He directs that you turn 
over the command of your Corps to General Gibbons ; that you proceed 
to the front, and by virtue of this order, in case of the truth of General 
Reynolds' death, you assume the command of the corps there assembled, 
viz : tlie 11th, 1st, and 3d, at Emmettsburg. If you think the ground 
and position there a better one to fight a battle under existing circum- 
stances, you will so advise the General, and he will order all the troops 
up. You know the General's views, and General Warren, who is fully 
aware of them, has gone out to see General Reynolds. 

Later, 1:15 p. m. — Reynolds has possession of Gettysburg, and the 
enemy are reported as falling back from in front of Gettysburg. Hold 
your column ready to move. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

D. BuTTERFIEIiD, 

Major-General and Chief of Staff. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 119 



A CONFEDERATE ACCOUNT. 

Major Goldsborough of the 1st Maryland Regi- 
ment writes of Hancock's great victory : 

"O God! what a fire greeted us, and the death-shriek rends the air on 

every side! at this moment I felt a violent shock, and found myself 

instantly stretched upon the ground. In the excitement I felt not the 

pain, and, resting upon my elbow, anxiously watched that struggling 

column. Column, did I say? A column no longer, but the torn and 

scattered fragments of one. But flesh and blood could not live in such 

a fire ; and a handful of survivors of what had been a little more than 

twelve hours before the pride and boast of the army sought to reach the 
cover of the woods." 

•* I saw General Willcox," writes an English officer, *' come up to 
General Lee, and explain, almost crying, the state of his Brigade." Gen- 
eral Lee immediately shook hands with him and said cheerfully, " Never 
mind. General, all this has been my fault. It is I that have lost this 
fight, and you must help me out of it the best way you can." 

'' The erjeray leaped over the wall, opened fire along the whole line, 
and dashed forward, running at fine speed as they approached the in- 
trenchments on the hill. When the head of the column came within 
point-blank range, suddenly, the seventy guns which Lee supposed he 
had silenced, but which had saved their ammunition and their strength 
opened with all the fury and death-dealing ardor of a well trained ar- 
tillery ; straight from front to rear, diagonally from right to left, and 
from left to right, the double charge of grape and canister, the shrapnel 
spherical case, swept and tore in fearful havoc through the columns. 
But the infuriated enemy rushed on even to. the cannon's mouth Pick- 
ett's division carried the intrenchment in the centre, and for a moment the 
hostile colors waved over Hancock's line. But almost instantly his 
Infantry drove back the enemy who had already forced the Artillery 
men from their guns." — J, R, Sypher's History of the Pennsylvania Re- 
serve Corps. 



120 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Now follows the judgment of a KepuLlican 
soldier, Brigadier General J. W. Hofmann, who 
commanded the Fifty-Sixth Pennsylvania Regi- 
ment in the battle of Gettysburg. In a very inter- 
esting paper read by him before the Historical So- 
ciety of Pennsylvania, March 8, 1880, he spoke of 
General Hancock as follows, after describing the 
progress of the battle up to a certain point. 
General Hofmann is one of those quiet, unobtru- 
sive men who recall the best specimens of the old 
school soldier. 

* It became evident, as we moved up the slope, that we were ap- 
proaching a point where the topographical features of the locality 
would, in some measure, compensate for the absent corps. But where 
each. individual brigade or regimental commander should reform his 
command, whether upon the right or upon the left, seemed to be a 
difficult subject to decide, the orders received were constantly conflict- 
ing. Under these circumstances, we moved up the slope, and at the 
crest met a group of mounted officers, among them, one whose qualities 
were such as eminently fitted him for the critical hour. He saw before 
him a commingled mass of troops. Troops of the army whose fortunes 
he had shared from its birth. He knew that the discipline that had 
been instilled by him who had organized them into an army — that 
grand, undaunted, indestructible Army of the Potomac — was still 
within them. Directing this division to reform upon the right, tliat 
one upon the left, it was but a short time, and he had wrought order 
from chaos. This accomplished, he directed the occupation of Gulp's 
Hill. The hill was soon occupied, but not a moment too soon. 

The Seventh Indiana of our brigade, detached in the morning for 
special duty, as I have stated, and not engaged in conflicts with the 
enemy, rejoined us as we were reforming in the cemetery, and being a 
compact organization, it was sent at once to form a line on Gulp's Hill. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 121 

Major Grover, its commanding officer, established a line from the pin- 
nacle down to the foot of the eastern slope, and on his way back to his 
centre, encountered and captured a scout of the enemy, who had crossed 
the hill before the line was established, and was on his way back when 
captured, with the report that the hill was not occupied by our troops. 
Grover's line of pickets was soon reinforced into a line of battle, which, 
on the following evening, successfully repulsed the desperate assault 
made by the enemy to capture the Hill. 

It has always seemed to me that the merit for restoring order, and 
the foresight in directing the occupation of Gulp's Hill, have failed to 
be fully appreciated by those who have written upon the subject. With- 
out Gulp's Hill in our possession, we could never have left our line on 
Cemetery Eidge on the second and third day of the battle. 

That line on Gulp's Hill became the high water line of the tidal 
wave of the rebellion, that far North had human slavery again carried 
her shackles, and from that line it ebbed back, back to Appomattox. 

Mr. President, and members of the Historical Society, whose special 
province it is to collate and make record of all that concerns the history 
of our great State, the events that transpire within her borders, the 
deeds of her sons, I desire to place myself upon record with you as 
saying, that the officer to whom I have alluded, as having rendered 
such inestimable service on that memorable evening, is a son of Penn- 
sylvania. Plis name is AVinfield Scott Hancock." 

It was at the very moment of this brilliant 
achievement that General Hancock was wounded. 
He was laid bleeding on the grass, surrounded 
by anxious groups of officers and men. " Shall 
we not carry you to the rear, General?" in- 
quired Colonel Yesey, who was near him. '' No, 
I thank you, Colonel," said Hancock, in the midst 
of his pain, calmly adding: "Attend to your 
commands, gentlemen, I will take care of myself" 
In connection with a preceding charge on Hancock's 



122 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

corps occurred the death of the Confederate Gene- 
ral Barksdale. 

I have said I knew him well. I can see him 
now ; his pale face, dark brown hair ; the impas- 
sioned orator with extreme Southern views, yet 
full of that peculiar chivalry which belongs to the 
best classes of the South. He and his brother Ed- 
ward, whatever may be said of their politics, have 
always been honorable, high-minded men. 

On the afternoon of Friday, July 3rd, the storm 
of the battle was over. The retreat of the enemy 
began immediately after his defeat. He literally 
stood, not upon the order of going, but went — and 
that so rapidly, that he left nearly eight thousand 
prisoners, and sick and wounded, in our hands. 
The aggregate loss of Lee was thirty-seven thou- 
sand men, among whom were seven Generals killed 
in the battle, and six wounded. He lost in priso- 
ners, including the wounded, thirteen thousand 
six hundred and twenty-one. Of trophies, there 
were three guns, forty-one colors, and of small 
arms, twenty-four thousand nine hundred and 
seventy eight. 

During the severest part of this great battle, 
there was a time when the troops in command of 
the gallant General Birney, since dead, were in 
imminent peril ; and a large force of the enemy, 
sweeping furiously down from the contiguous hills, 
had nearly environed him in their deadly embrace. 
General Hancock, perceiving the danger from his 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK, . 125 

centre, placed himself at the head of a picked di- 
vision, and dashed rapidly forward to the scene. 
His gallant approach was noticed by all, and those 
who were nearest to him among the participants of 
the sanguinary struggle, felt sure that some im- 
portant and brilliant movement was in hand. Ap- 
proaching the disordered lines, he said: "Gen. Bir- 
ney, you are nearly surrounded by the enemy." " I 
know it. General Hancock," replied Birney ; " I am 
doing my best against a superior force." " I have 
brought you these reinforcements," continued Han- 
cock, pointing his hand toward the rapidly coming 
troops. " You will place them at your discretion. 
General Birney; General Willard, in immediate 
command, will fight the men." The balls of the 
infuriate enemy, who had been bitterly disap- 
pointed at the reception given him by the lines of 
Hancock, were flying through tlie air like a driving 
storm of hail. Gen. Hancock coolly maintained 
his seat on horseback, and watched, for a few mo- 
ments, the dispositions made of the reinforcements 
he had so opportunely brought. Then he turned 
the head of his horse towards another part of the 
hotly contested field. At that moment a ball passed 
near him and struck directly in the forehead of Gen. 
Willard, who fell dead at his feet. The look of Han- 
cock at that instant is indescribable. He gazed si- 
lently on his fallen and gallant companion in arms, 
and glanced his searching eye to note its effects on 
the men. Every man was at his post, fighting 



126 LIFE AND PUBLIC CABEEE OF 

bravely still, as the new commander stepped for- 
ward to the vacant place. 

As the two Generals, Hancock and Birney, rode 
rapidly along, reviewing the lines, giving orders 
and words of encouragement, the brave fellows 
who lay wounded in their path would raise them- 
selves up from the crimson grass, and answer with 
cheers : " General, we're driving them ! hurrah !" 
Regardless of their own sufferings, they rejoiced 
thus in the triumph of our country, some of them 
amid the very agonies of death. " It was more 
than we could bear," said General Birney, relating 
the scene, as he remembered how his own tears, and 
those of Hancock, fell among those dying heroes. 

''What gem hath dropped and sparkles o'er his chain? 
. The tear most sacred shed for others' pain ; 

That starts at once, bright, pure, from pity's mine, 
Already polished by the Hand Divine." 

It is no wonder to us, when we become familiar 
with such incidents as these' in the career of Gen. 
Hancock, that he should be so dear to the hearts 
of his men. Where the roar of battle was the 
loudest, he was sure to be present, if in his power 
to be. Where his gallant soldiers fell the fastest, 
he was always certain to be near. The humblest 
man in the ranks never passed unnoticed. His 
liianly, commanding presence acted like a charm 
wherever seen, and his well-chosen words passed 
like an electric force from rank to rank." "^^ 

* Part of this chapter is taken from the admirable little book, " Win- 
field, The Lawyer's Son," written by Mr. Dennison, fifteen years ago. 



WINFIELB SCOTT HANCOCK, 127 



CHAPTER lY. 

CEMETERY HILL. 

<< /^EMETERY HILL has become consecrated ground. Two of 

■ j the marble statues ornamenting the pedestal personify War 

and History. War, symbolized by a soldier resting from the 

conflict, narrates to History the story of the struggle, and the deeds of 

the martyr-heroes who fell in that famous battle. 

The historian of the future who essays to tell the tale of Gettysburg 
undertakes an onerous task, a high responsibility, a sacred trust. Above 
all things, justice and truth should dwell in his mind and heart. Then, 
dipping his pen as it were in the crimson tide, the sunshine of heaven 
lighting his page, giving ' honor to whom honor is due,' doing even 
justice to the splendid valor alike of friend and foe, he may tell the 
world how the rains descended in streams of fire, and the floods came in 
billows of rebellion, and the winds blew in blasts of fraternal execration, 
and beat upon the fabric of the Federal Union, and that it fell not, for, 
resting on the rights and liberties of the people, it was founded upon a 
rock." WiNFiELD S. Hancock. 

HISTORIC JUDGMENT UPON HANCOCK AND GETTYSBURG. 

When I come to this part of my subject I am 
appalled at the superabundance of material. It is 
not only the quality but the quantity of comment 
and commendation that makes the task of selec- 



128 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

tion fairly herculean. I discard that marvellous 
repository, the " Letters of the Private Soldiers," 
not because they are not the best, but simply be- 
cause to choose would be invidious. And for the 
same reason I must j)ass over the multitudinous 
material furnished by the daily newspapers. There- 
fore I venture to present from more carefully stud- 
ied descriptions something which may serve to fix 
the great facts more firmly in the American mind 
and to do justice to the accomplished soldier now 
before the American people for the highest office in 
their gift. 

First I give a passage from the graphic recital of 
the stirring deeds of an eventful day, from the pen 
of that fine soldier, General St. Clair A. Mulhol- 
land, a participant in the battle, in the Philadel- 
phia Times, February 14, 1880 : 

HANCOCK TO THE RESCUE. 

" However, all was not yet lost. Meade had again thought of Han- 
cock, and as yesterday he sent him to stop the rout of the First and 
Eleventh Corps, so to-day he orders him to assume command on the left. 
Once more he is in the fight. A half hour of daylight yet remains ; 
but it is long enough to enable him to rally some of our scattered troops, 
face them once more to the front, gather reinforcements, drive back the 
enemy, and restore our broken lines. At Waterloo, Wellington peti- 
tioned God for "night or Blucher." At Gettysburg, on this evening, 
we had no Blucher to pray for. Our whole force was up ; but, while 
omitting the last part of the great Englishman's prayer, we had every 
reason to adopt the first portion. As the fight was closing upon the 
left of our army, Ewell was striking a terrific and successful blow on 
the right. As we re formed our division on the Taneytown road, and 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 129 

after the rough handling we had received, had some difficulty in get- 
ting things in shape, we heard, away to the right and rear, the yells of 
the Louisiana Tigers as they rushed over our works at Gulp's Hill. 
This was the most anxious hour of all in the great battle. We had 
been driven on the left, and on the right the rebs had effected a lodg- 
ment in our works, one of our strongest positions, and were, in fact, in 
our rear, without any adequate force to oppose them. Another hour of 
daylight, and unless some miracle had intervened, we would most likely 
have left Gettysburg without waiting to bid the inhabitants good eve- 
ning. But, fortunately for us, there was no Joshua around Lee's head- 
quarters, so the sun went down on almanac time, utterly regardless of 
the little troubles that we were trying to settle. Darkness fell upon 
the scene, and prevented the Johnnies from taking further advantage 
of their success, giving us a chance to repair our disasters. Few of us 
slept during this night. Our division went back, and was put in posi- 
tion on Cemetery Kidge by General Hancock, who all the night long 
labored to strengthen this line. The men gathered rocks and fence- 
rails, and used them to erect a light breastwork." 

THE THIRD OF JULY. 
"At this tumultuous moment we witnessed a deed of heroism such as 
we are apt to attribute only to knights of the olden time. Hancock, 
mounted and accompanied by his staff, Major Mitchell, Captain Harry 
Bingham, Captain Isaac Parker and Captain E. P. Bronson, with the 
corps flag flying in the hands of a brave Irishman, Private James Wells, 
of the Sixth New York Cavalry, started at the right of his line, where 
it joins the Taney town road, and slowly rode along the terrible crest to 
the extreme left of his position, while shot and shell roared and crashed 
around him, and every moment tore great gaps in the ranks at his side. 

" Storm'd at with shot and shell, 
Boldly they rode, and well." 

It was a gallant deed, and withal not a reckless exposure of life ; for 
the presence and calm demeanor of the commander as he passed through 
the lines of his men, set them an example which an hour later bore 
good fruit. 
9 



130 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

" At this moment silence reigned along our whole line. With arms at 
a * right shoulder shift,' the division of Longstreet's corps moved for- 
ward with a precision that was wonderfully beautiful. It is now our 
turn, and the lines that a few moments before seemed so still, now 
teemed with animation. Eighty of our guns open their brazen mouths; 
solid shot and shell are sent on their errand of destruction in quick 
succession. We see them fall in countless numbers among the advan- 
cing troops. The accuracy of our fire could not be excelled ; the mis- 
siles strike right in the ranks, tearing and rending them in every direc- 
tion. The ground over which they have passed is strewn with dead 
and wounded. But on they come. The gaps in the ranks are closed 
as soon as made. They have three-quarters of a mile to pass exposed 
to our fire, and half the distance is nearly passed. Our gunners now 
load with cannister, and the efiect is appalling; but still they march on. 
Their gallantry is past all praise — it is sublime. Now they are within 
a hundred yards. Our infantry rise up and pour round after round 
into these heroic troops. 

THE GALLANT MEN OF THE SOUTH. 
" At Waterloo the Old Guard recoiled before a less severe fire. But 
there was no recoil in these men of the South — they marched right on 
as though they courted death. They* concentrate in great numbers and 
strike on the most advanced part of our line. The crash of the mus- 
ketry and the cheers of the men blend together. The Philadelphia 
brigade occupy this point. They are fighting on their own ground and 
for their own State, and in the bloody hand-to-hand engagement which 
ensues, the Confederates, though fighting with desperate valor, find it 
impossible to dislodge them— they are rooted to the ground. Seeing 
hoAV utterly hopeless further effort would be, and knowing the impossi- 
bility of reaching their lines, should they attempt a retreat, large num- 
bers of the rebels lay doAvn their arms, and the battle is won. To the 
left of the Philadelphia brigade we did not get to such close quarters. 
Seeing the utter annihilation of Pickett's troops, the division of Wilcox 
and others on their right went to pieces almost before they got within 
musket-range. A few here and there ran away, and tried to regain 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 131 

tljeir lines; but many laid down their arms, and came in as prisoners. 
At the most critical moment Hancock fell, among his men, on the line 
of Stannard's Vermont brigade, desperately wounded ; but he continued 
to direct the fight until victory was assured, and then he sent Major 
Mitchell to announce the glad tidings to the commander of the army. 
Said he: 'Tell General Meade that tlie troops under my command 
have repulsed the assault of the enemy, who are now flying in all 
directions in my front.' * Say to General Hancock,' said Meade, in 
reply, *I regret exceedingly that he is wounded, and I thank him for 
the country and myself for the service he has rendered to-day." Truly, 
the country may thank General Hancock, as Congress afterwards did, 
for his great service on that field." 

'* Five thousand prisoners were sent to the rear, and we gathered up 
thirty-three regimental standards in front of the Second Corps. The 
remaining hours of daylight during this day were occupied in caring 
for the wounded, looking over the field and talking over the incidents 
of the fight. Many noble ofiicers and men were lost on both sides, and in 
the camp hospital they died in hundreds during the afternoon and 
night. The Rebel General, Armistead, died in this way. As he was 
carried off to the rear he was met by Captain Harry Bingham, of Han- 
cock's staff, who, getting off his horse, asked him if he could do ariy- 
thing for him. Armistead replied to take hia watch and spurs to 
General Hancock, that they might be sent to his relatives. His wishes 
were complied with, General Hancock sending them to his relatives at 
the first opportunity. Armistead was a brave soldier with a chivalric 
presence, and came forward in front of his brigade waving his sword. 
He was shot through the body and fell inside of our line. Some of 
the wounded rebels showed considerable animosity towards our men. 
One of them who lay mortally wounded in front of the Sixty-ninth 
Pennsylvania, sullenly refused to be taken to the hospital, saying that 
he wanted to die right there on the field where he fell. The scene 
after Longstreet's charge was indescribable. In front of the Philadel- 
phia brigade the dead lay in great heaps. Dismounted guns, ruins of 
exploded caissons, dead and mutilated men and horses, were piled up 
together in every direction. 



132 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

SCENES ON THE BATTLE-FIELD. 

*' The Colonel of one of Pickett's regiments lay dead, his arms 
clasping the body of his brother, who was Major of his regiment; they 
were remarkably handsome men and greatly resembled each other. 
Out on the field where Longstreet's corps had passed thousands of 
wounded were laying. We had no means of reaching these poor fel- 
lows, and many of them lay there between the lines until the morning 
of the fifth. On the fourth we lay quietly all day, aAvaiting the 
next event. The enemy could be seen moving about on Seminary 
Eidge. Welcome supplies came up and were issued. All hands felt 
cheerful, but a degree of uncertainty as to whether the battle was over 
or whether the rebels were getting ready for some new movement pre- 
vented us from celebrating the national anniversary in a proper manner. 
Once in a while the sharp-shooters would try their skill on some of our 
people to let us know they were still there. The stench from the dead 
became intolerable, and we tried to escape it by digging up the ground 
and burying our faces in the fresh earth. On the morning of the fifth 
we found the enemy had gone, and then what a scene ! I think the 
fact was first discovered by the troops on Gulp's Hill, and what a cheer 
went up ! A cheer that swelled into a roar and was taken up by the 
boys on Cemetery Hill, rolled along the crest to Round Top and then 
back again. Cheers from the Philadelphia Brigade, that stood a living 
wall, against which the hosts beat in vain. Cheers for Meade, the 
soldier, "without fear or reproach,'' who here began, with a great 
victory, his illustrious career as commander of tli^ Army of the Poto- 
mac. Cheers for Hancock, who had stemmed the tide of defeat on the 
first day and selected the ground on which this glorious victory was 
achieved, who, on the second day, had again stopped the tide of Eebel 
victory and restored our shattered lines, and on the third day had met 
and repulsed the final assault, on which Lee's all was staked, and won 
the battle that was really the death-blow to the rebellion. 

"And then we gathered up with tender care and consigned to earth 
our noble dead. 

When will their glory fade ? 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 133 

" Indeed they have not died in vain. The good they have accomplished 
will last forever. History will record in glowing words thei** heroic 
deeds and glorious death." 

FROM THE "martial DEEDS OF PENNSYLVAlSriA," BY SAMUEL 
P. BATES, CONTRIBUTED BY COL. JOHN P. NICHOLSON, 

"When General Meade relieved General Hooker in command of the 
Army of the Potomac, and commenced the movement into Pennsylvania 
in pursuit of Lee, he kept the Second Corps on the centre of the line of 
mafch ; and when on the morning of the Ist of July he found that the 
left wing of his army had struck the enemy, and Reynolds had fallen, 
reposing great confidence in Hancock, he sent him upon the field to 
assume supreme command. Upon his arrival he found afiTairs in great 
extremity. The First and Eleventh Corps had alone been pitted against 
a full half of the rebel army, and broken and bleeding were retreating 
through the town to Cemetery Hill, where the well-planted artillery of 
Steinwehr formed the nucleus for rallying, and where he saw at a glance 
was a favorable point for making a stand. It was with a thrill of glad- 
ness that the weary and begrimed soldiers hailed the face of the good 
chief. Howard, the leader of the Eleventh Corps, who had been in 
command, was already there. Hancock made known his instructions 
that he had orders to assume command from General Meade. General 
Howard replied, ' All right, Hancock, go ahead.' 

"Hancock had an excellent military eye. He could take in at a glance 
the advantages and defects of a great batfle-field. he character and 
composition of the army, too, were perfectly familiar to him. His first 
care vras to secure immediate safety, and to preserve it until darkness 
should come, when he could retire to a new position, if necessary ; for 
as yet General Meade had not decided where he would fight. Hancock 
was instructed before leaving head -quarters to look for good positions 
as he rode up. He was pleased with the Gettysburg ground, and so 
notified Meade, though he detected its inherent weakness in its liability 
to be turned upon on the left. His dispositions were wisely made. The 
resolute Wadsworth was sent to Culp's Hill to cover the little ravine 



134 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

that makes up hi rear of Cemetery Hill, and there also he posted the 
artillery of Stevens. To the indomitable Geary was given the vulnera- 
ble ground stretching towards Round Top. The Eleventh Corps was 
disposed upon the crest of Cemetery Ridge. Along the open ground on 
the left flank he placed the watchful Buford, and in rear of all, as a 
reserve, the dauntless Doubleday, with the remnants of the First Corps, 
grim veterans who had all day long received unmoved a baptism of fire. 
" When the troops had been posted and all seemed secure, he turned 
over the command to Slocum, about 7 p. m., who had now arrived, 
and who also ranked him, and returned to head-quarters. His action 
was approved, and his dispositions were carried out in every particu- 
lar by Meade when he came upon the field. On the afternoon of the 
following day, when the tornado of battle burst upon the army, and 
Sickles was wounded and his gallant Third Corps crushed, Meade called 
for Hancock, and put him in command of that corps also, in addition to 
the Second Corps and other troops he was commanding, and by vigo- 
rous and careful efforts he succeeded in bringing into form and order 
the Third Corps. On the evening of this very eventful day, when 
the Louisiana Tigers made their furious charge upon Cemetery 
Hill, without waiting for orders — knowing that peril was imminent 
— he sent Carroll's brigade to the rescue, which, advancing^upon the 
run, came in time to repel the assault. In speaking of this event after- 
wards, Hancock said that he felt in his bones that there was urgent 
need of help. On the third day of the battle the grand charge of 
Longstreet fell full upon Hancock's corps ; and gallantly was it met and 
its massed columns swept away as flax by fire. In the midst of this 
terrific onset, and when the whole heavens were wrapt in flame, while 
dashing over the ground unheeding danger, he was struck and severely 
wounded, falling from his horse on his line of battle. He was laid in 
an ambulance, but refused to leave the field until he saw the enemy beaten 
and victory perching upon his standards. Nor was the bleeding hero 
yet contept, * When I was wounded,' he says, ' and lying down in 
my ambulance and about leaving the field, I dictated a note to General 
Meade, and told him if he would put in the Fifth and Sixth Corps, I 
believed he would win a great victory.' By a joint resolution of Con- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK 135 

gress, he received the thanks of that body for * his gallant, meritorious, 
and conspicuous services in that great and decisive victory .' " 

A SOUTHERN VIEW OF THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. 

From the Southern Review^ of April, 1869. 

" Gettysburg marks the period of a most formidable irruption made 
by Southern arms into the Northern territory. In weight of artillery, 
and number of men actually engaged, it probably exceeded any battle 
of the war. On its issue hung, perhaps, the fate, for the time, of one 
or more of the large Northern cities. The very date of its occurrence, 
on the eve of the Fourth of July, has added to the impression it has 
made. It has seemed to many, the turning point of a contest of which 
the remainder was but a tremendous death-struggle. 

"The Federal line was broken, the guns captured and the troops hold- 
ing them put to flight, and his forces right and left promptly scattered. 
This day would have added another to the list of the disasters of the 
Army of the Potomac, hut Hancock exevUd himself with great skill and 
courage to stay th^ precedence of defeat. The troops on both sides were hurled 
on Pickett's flanks ; others were brought up on his front. Then after 
a short but terrible struggle, in which all his brigade commanders and 
nearly all his regimental commanders went down, and Pickett, leavino- 
more than half his division dead, wounded or prisoners, was driven 
back to the Confederate lines. The brigades on his right moved up 
after his repulse to attack, but did not reach the works before they were 
forced to retire. 

" Had General Lee succeeded in his bold dash against the Federal 
army, and driven it, with the loss of its immense artillery, from Semi- 
nary Eidge, the advantage thus gained would have been most important 
to the Confederacy. It would open Pennsylvania to him for the time, 
would possibly have given' him Baltimore, would have caused the re- 
call of General Grant, and the abandonment of the successful union 
campaign in the Southwest, and might possibly, though not probably, 
have strengthened the peace party in the North sufliciently to have 
seriously embarrassed the Lincoln administration. It was the prospect 



136 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

of these gains that reconciled General Lee to deliver battle when he 
found it imminent ; these were all processes which trembled in the bal- 
ance for three days, and which would have been his, had he at any time 
during that period been able to secure a combined and simultaneous 
attack on the Federal position." 

Their terrible repulse on the afternoon of the 
third of July, when General Hancock hurled 
back their impetuous columns, was the real oppor- 
tunity for the surrender, which was postponed until 
April, 1865. The Confederates w^ere flying towards 
the Potomac, at Williamsport, and a sad, sad, 
Fourth of July it was for them. While they were 
pushing forward their wagons, filled with wounded 
and prisoners, their leaders looked back, fearing 
pursuit, and expecting every minute to be struck, 
as they staggered on. The whole North was filled 
with delight. General Hancock's passage home- 
ward was a triumphal ovation, although he was 
suffering terribly from his wounds. In the mean- 
while, the Confederate leaders were doing their best 
to rally and compose their demoralized troops. 
Longstreet and Lee were busy in comforting the 
flying and in healing the hurts of the wounded. 
Of the conduct of the latter officer, an eye-witness 
wrote : 

" If Longstreet's behaviour was admirable, that of General Lee was 
perfectly sublime. He was engaged in rallying and encouraging the 
broken troops", and was riding about, a little in front of the wood, quite 
alone — his staff being engaged in a similar manner further to the rear. 
His face, which is always placid and cheerful, did not show signs of the 
slightest disappointment, care, or annoyance; and he was addressing to 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 137 

erery soldier he met a few words of encouragement, such as * all this 
will come out right in the end ; we will talk it over afterwards ; but 
meanwhile all good men must rally ; we want all good and true men 
just now, etc' He spoke to all the wounded men that passed him, and 
the slightly wounded he exhorted ' to bind up their hurts and take a 
musket' in this emergency. Very few failed to answer his appeal, and 
1 saw many badly wounded men take off their hats and cheer him. 
He said to rtre, ' This has been a sad day for us. Colonel — a sad day ; 
but we can't always expect to gain victories.' " 

" This was the last offensive sally attempted by Lee. He was himself 
thoroughly convinced of the hopelessness of the undertaking, and the 
fire of his troops was quenched in blood. 'The severe loss sustained 
by the army, and the reduction of its ammunition,' he mildly says, 
' rendered another attempt to dislodge the enemy inadvisable.' 

Swinton says: 

" The defeat of the Army of the Potomac, and the retention df a foot- 
ing long enough on loyal soil to so work upon the North, that under 
the combined pressure of its own fears, the uprising of reactionary 
elements at home, and perhaps the influence of the powers abroad, it 
might be disposed to sue for peace. He had ample means for the con- 
duct of the enterprise, which was of itself not extravagant, and it is 
rare that any military operation presents greater assurance of success 
than Lee had of attaining his end of conquering a peace on ISTorthern 
soil. 

" This being so, we can rise at once to the height of the appreciation 
of the triumph at Gettysburg — a victory which, if we consider the tre- 
mendous issue which it involved, calls forth sentiments akin to the 
trembling joy with which Cromwell returned thanks to heaven for the 
* crowning mercy ' of Worcester. It was the crisis of the war — the sal- 
vation of the Korth. 

*' But the results of Grettysburg were not confined to the eastern thea- 
tre of operations : its efrect was powerfully felt throughout all the West, 
where, in consequence of the absorption of force for the invasion of 
Pennsylvania, a succession of severe disasters befell the Confederate 



138 . LIFE AND PUBLIC CABEEE OF 

arms. At the time the campaign was initiated the Army of the Mis- 
sissippi was shut up in Vicksburg, and the Army of the Tennessee 
confronted the force of Rosecrans in daily expectation of attack, and 
itself too weak to maintain its ground. 

"And thus the battle-summer rose to its climax in the clash and 
clamor of Titanic war, which, spending its fury on the soil of Pennsyl- 
sylvania, was echoed back from the borders of the Mississippi and the 
Alpine heights of the Cumberland Mountains." 

Now these words are not the words of a politi- 
cian, but the sober judgment of a careful and 
candid historian, accepted as such by both sides ; 
in his clear and cogent way, always ready to do 
justice to an enemy, even at the expense of the 
cause he was known to sustain. 

The truth is, if General Hancock, instead of 
having been a member of the Democratic party, 
had been as pronounced a Republican, this year 
would have found him a Republican instead of a 
Democratic candidate, and then all the charges 
made against him would have been buried deep in 
the ocean. What he did for Pennsylvania, what 
he did for the nation, so freely admitted after the 
Gettysburg victory, would hq^ve been claimed by 
the party leaders as one of the proudest military 
achievements in the world; and because this is 
the fact, so many thousands of Republicans turn 
away with shame from the practice which has 
now become the rule among republican leaders; 
the particular effort of the ring-leaders of the Re- 
publican party is to dwarf, dim and deny all these 
unparalleled services to the country, because the 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 139 

man who wrought them is a member of the great 
Democratic party. 

A soldier, writing to the Buffalo Courier, a few 
days ago, uses these words : 

"The Sixty- fourth New York Volunteers, to which regiment the 
writer of this article belonged during the war, was one of the regiments 
which made up the famous First Division, Second Army Corps, Army 
of the Potomac. General E. V. Sumner was the first commander of 
the division, and Gen. "Dick" Eichardson the second. 

'* Our regiment first saw General Winfield S. Hancock on the battle- 
field of Antietam, September 17th, 1862. It was during the height of 
this sanguinary and bloody conflict, as near as I can recollect, about 
two o'clock, p. M., with the undulating field and sunken road literally 
covered with dead and wounded, with shells bursting and bullets shriek- 
ing over the heads of our men, lying flat upon their faces in line of 
battle, that General Hancock assumed command of the First Division, 
in place of General Eichardson, wounded, and appeared upon the field 
in our front, riding along without aide or orderly, alone — surely a fine 
•place for a dress-parade soldier. 

"We had thereafter, during the remainder of the service in the war, 
daily opportunities to observe the Democratic nominee for the presi- 
dency. We can remember General Hancock in camp and on the march, 
and in battle. We can remember the reconnoisance of the First Divi- 
sion from Harper's Ferry out to Halltown and Charlestown, under 
Hancock, driving the enemy before it. We can remember him on the 
march down the Loudon Valley, driving the enemy out of Snicker's 
Gap and holding it. 

"The battle of Fredericksburg was fought December 13th, 1862, and 
Hancock's division bore the brunt of the hattle, charging the enemy 
upon Mayre's Heights, held \>j three or four entrenched lines of battle. 
Hancock himself rode up the broad glacis upon his splendid charger at 
the head of his division, and seemed the embodiment of heroism. 
Dead soldiers wearing the red trefoil were buried near the enemy's 
second line of breastworks, showing how far they had advanced. We 



140 LIFE AND PUBLIC-CAREER OF 

can remember Hancock at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, 
Spottsylvania, Coal Harbor, and Petersburg. There is not a soldier of 
the Old Second Army Corps who has a record to be proud of, but 
is proud of General Hancock. The regiment to which I belonged, — 
and there is none with a more glorious record — which was composed of 
men from Cattaraugus and Erie Counties, will not refuse to support 
their old commander now." 

The same writer, commenting upon the attacks 
of the Kepubiican office-holders upon Hancock 
now, adds : " They know it was Hancock's corps 
that saved the Army of the Potomac in the Wil- 
derness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor and Peters- 
burg, and the living heroes of the old second army 
corps, know it was Hancock's corps at Gettysburg 
that saved Washington, Baltimore and Philadel- 
phia." 

The brutal and illogical course of the Repub- 
lican leaders of the present day is killing Mr. 
Garfield. While they assail Hancock, while they 
deny that he is a citizen of Pennsylvania, while 
they attempt to connect him with all manner of 
scandal, each slander in turn refuted, and insist 
that it is only tlife volunteer general, and not the 
regular, that deserves honor and promotion, (for- 
getting all the time when they were Whigs they 
nominated Gen. Scott for the Presidency, and when 
they were Know- Nothings they nominated Zachary 
Taylor for the Presidency, both regulars;) yet now 
let a Confederate general become a Republican, like 
Moseby, or Longstreet, or Key, the present Post- 
master General, all at once the very men who cover 




Antietam Battle-ground. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 14 3 

such a soldier as Hancock with their libels, in- 
stantly forget what is called the rebel record of 
those they welcome from the Southern ranks into 
the Republican party. ** No matter," says this 
private soldier, in the Buffalo Courier^ " how dark 
a man's record may have been, no matter how 
many Union soldiers he murdered in cold blood, 
during the war, no matter how much of a rebel he 
was then considered, no matter if he had been 
captured by the old army corps, he would have had 
a drum court-martial and been hung, but if only 
he would swear allegiance to the Republican party, 
then he is a hero fit for any trust." 

I could fill pages with such testimonials as these 
to General Hancock — pages from the very Repub- 
lican papers that are now traducing him, because 
he is a member of the Democratic Parcy — pages 
from the very Republican politicians who were 
literally ready to fall down and worship him in 
1863, after the battle of Gettysburg. My gifted 
friend, George G. Gross, Esq., of Reading, Penn- 
sylvania, who wrote so graphic a picture of the 
battle of Gettysburg in my old paper, the Press^ 
November 27, 1865, wrote as follows: 

" The story told in Blackwood by Colonel- Freemantle, of the British 
army, who was present, may help to explain why so few of the Confed- 
erates were hit. Reynolds was killed, and two, Hancock and Sickles, 
wounded. Colonel Freemantle says : ' Carried away by excitement, I 
rushed up to Longstreet, who was sitting on a fence, quietly whittling a 
stick, whilst watching the charge, and said to General Longstreet : " Is 



144 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

not this splendid ? I would not have missed it for the world." " The 
devil you would not!" replied Longstreet, "why, don't you see we are 
getting licked like hell?" ' " 

Speaking of the bombardment which preceded 
the Confederate charge, General Hancock says: 
" It was the most terrific cannonading I ever wit- 
nessed, and the most prolonged." 

A Confederate eye-witness, describing it, says: 
" I have never yet heard such a tremendous artil- 
lery-fire. The very earth shook under our feet; 
the hills seemed to rock like drunken men. For a 
half an hour this tremendous fire was heard. 
During this time the crash of falling timber and 
the rocks flying through the air, the swish of balls 
and shells and the fierce neighing of the wounded 
artillery-horses, made a picture terrible, grand and 
sublime." 

LETTER FROM A UNION OFFICER OF A MARYLAND REGI- 
MENT DESCRIBING MEADE, HANCOCK AND SLOCUM. 

Gettysburg Springs, Pa., July 24:th, 1880. 
Col. J. W. Forney. 

3Iy Dear Sir .-—The statement which I made to you yesterday, and 
which you requested me to put in writing, was : General Meade having 
been assigned to the command of the Army of the Potomac whilst on 
the march to meet, wherever found, the great army with its great com- 
mander, that had invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania, and was on its 
march to any and all points which its powers might enable it to reach, 
there was much anxious expectation in respect Jto his power to handle, 
to best advantage, so large an army, and on which so much depended, 
amongst both officers and men of his command. Here let me remind 
you that the Union Army was composed in large part of Volunteer 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 145 

citizens, officers and men, who were there in pursuit of their own 
supreme afiair, the preservation of their own CJonstitutional Govern- 
ment ; and that the minds ot those men were in intense activity. They 
were absorbed in other ideas than disposing of the spoils of a political 
canvas. Whilst resolved to obey, without comment, whatever orders 
might be issued, they were naturally anxious to feel assured that such 
orders would be dictated by the highest attainable prudence, skill and 
wisdom. 

When it came to be understood that General Hancock had reached 
the front on Cemetery Hill, and had fully approved, and in fact selected 
the position to be occupied, and that General Meade showed himself to 
be so really great that, instead of arrogating any thing, he called in con- 
sultation his Lieutenants Hancock and Slocum, and divided the im- 
mediate command of the army between them, giving the left wing to 
Hancock, and the right to Slocum, reserving to himself the supervision 
of both ; and that his orders would be the products of the carefully 
matured judgment of himself and them, the anxiety and speculation 
mentioned were instantly replaced by an assurance, felt by every man, 
that there would be no mistakes in the orders we might receive — that 
each order would be fully considered, and aimed at one end only, the 
effective discharge of the duty before us — would offer in sacrifice no life 
unless demanded by that duty. I think that no such body of men as 
that which constituted the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg wg.s, per- 
haps, ever filled with a more quietly fixed determination to do and 
execute all orders than was that Army, and that its peculiar morale was 
the inspiration of the assurance mentioned. 

If the operations of the army in the series of struggles occurring in 
that campaign be studied, the presence of the universal assurance which 
I have attempted to describe will, I think, be apparent — its efficiency 
in reaching the result will be equally apparent — and the perfect con- 
cord between Meade, Hancock and Slocum will be clearly seen to be 
the true bottom source of that assurance. 

You will not misunderstand mc as intending to intimate that Gen- 
eral Meade abdicated, in the least degree, any one of the duties or 
responsibilities of his place of supreme command. I mean to say that 



146 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

he was large enough, was grand enough, to avail, without stint or 
grudge, of the knowledge and skill of Hancock and Slocum, and of 
himself, as it was then understood in the army. I mean to say that 
without Meade and Hancock and Slocum, there could be no assurance 
that the result at Gettysburg would have been attained. And pardon 
me for adding my belief that, were the power vouchsafed to his body 
in its honored grave, Meade's dust would move with indignant scorn at 
any attempt by any man to draw a line of distinction between the hon- 
ors justly due to himself, to Hancock, and to Slocum, for the issues of 
Gettysburg, and that each of the other two, yet spared to bless their 
country, and to be safe pillars of its defense against assault, from what- 
ever quarter, would with like scorn repel any effort to draw such line. 
Each was a hero — all three compounded made up the hero of Gettysburg. 

Now don't forget that I have written this because you insisted. I 
was but a Colonel commanding a regiment of Lockwood's Maryland 
Brigade, attached to the 12th corps. It may seem presumptuous in me 
to have said so much. But it is, every word, the truth, and will be 
verified by the conscience of every fairly intelligent man who partici- 
pated in the Gettysburg campaign. 

This is the first occasion on which I have put my pen to paper, on 
any subject connected with that campaign, since I wrote, at the request 
of my commanding officer, my official report, on July 4th, 1863. May 
this be my apology, if in this letter I may seem to have spoken with 
greater distinctness and. openness than may be becoming in so modest 
an actor in, comparatively, so humble a sphere. 
With great respect and regard, 

I am yours truly, 

Wm. p. IMaulsby. 

Major Yeale of the gallant Second Division, 
Twelfth Army Corps, commanded by Gen. John 
W. Gear}^ in the battle of Gettysburg, a modest 
soldier who served with equal distinction under 
Sherman and Grant sends me the following in- 
teresting incident : 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK, 147 

** The first day of the battle of Gettysburg, at between 3^ and 4 
o'clock, p. M., while the second division 12th Army Corps, commanded 
by Gen. John W. Geary was halted at the " Two Taverns,'* orders 
were received by General Geary to leave one brigade of his troops at 
the Two Taverns, and advance with his first and third brigades to the 
point. General Geary requested me to ride with him in advance of 
the troops to the point. We rode rapidly, and upon arriving at Cemetry 
Hill found General Hancock standing in about the centre of the road. 
At this time, about four o'clock, p. m., the First Corps, (General Eey- 
nolds having been killed) and the Eleventh Corps were upon the field 
and partly in line. The Third Corps was ofi'on the Emmettsburg road. 
General Geary dismounted upon arriving on the field and saluted Gen- 
eral Hancock. I sat upon my horse close to them and heard the fol- 
lowing conversation: General Hancock said, " Geary, where are your 
troops ? " Geary replied, '' Two brigades are on the road advancing.'' 
Hancock said " Do you see this knoll on the left, (meaning Little 
Round Top). That knoll is a commanding position, and we must take 
possession of it, aud then a line can be formed here and a battle fought. 
If we fail to fight here, we will be compelled to fall back about seven 
miles. In the absence of Slocum, I shall order you to place your troops 
on that knoll." General Geary said to me, " Veale, ride back and 
order General Greene to double-quick his troops diagonally across the 
fields and take possession of the knoll." • I rode to General Green and 
gave the orders. He took possession of the knoll just in time. That 
night the Third Corps under General Sickles relieved us, and we re- 
moved to the extreme right of the line. Then General Hancock's 
knowledge, skill and courage took in at a glance all the conditions of 
the field, and established the line at Gettysburg, which enabled us to 
fight the pivotal battle which saved the country." 

THE GENERAL AT HIS HOME IN 1863. 

But the Union victory at Gettysburg on the 3d 
of July, 1863, while it saved the country from a 
Confederate invasion, carried gloom and grief to 



148 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

many households. The Confederate losses were 
terrible, and many gallant men from the Worth 
were sent to their last home. At first the wound 
of General Hancock was believed to be fatal. He 
had had many miraculous escapes. He never 
spared himself, while more than careful of the 
lives of his men, and it is remarkable that with 
his conspicuous action and striking figure, he was 
not earlier struck down. 

Borne to Norristown, near his native place, hav- 
ing been followed all the way by the blessings and 
cheers of a grateful people, he had such a welcome 
as can never be forgotten. His position in the 
railway-car, where he was placed at length on a 
stretcher laid over the backs of the seats, drew^to 
his side many sympathizing friends, who gathered 
to- testify their warm admiration and praise. Ar- 
rived at the station, he was met by a detachment 
of the veteran guards, who tenderly placed him 
on their shoulders, bearing him through the streets. 
The inhabitants along the route, as may be well 
supposed, were deeply moved by the sight. Not 
knowing the extent of his wounds, and seeing him 
thus prostrate in the hands of soldiers marching 
with steady steps on the side-walk, they watched 
the scene with peculiar interest. 

Twenty-three years before, he had left his 
father's house a stripling, and since then served in 
every section of the republic, passing through 
many dangers* and now in the thirty-ninth year 



WINFIELD SCOTT BANCOCK, 149 

of his age, he came back to his parents and his 
friends one of the most envied and honored citi- 
zens of the republic he had so often risked his life 
to save, and though severely injured in a con- 
flict that came as near losing the life of the Re- 
public as his own, still happy in the supreme 
sense of duty done. 

In turning over the newspapers of the day, it is 
gratifying to find the universality of the honors 
paid to him. There was but one sentiment in all 
parties: he had done the great work; he had 
received the unprompted and stupendous com- 
pliment of his illustrious Commander-in-chief, 
General Meade. His companions-in-arms, from 
his equals in rank to the privates in the great 
army, hailed him with admiration and love; and 
his government, alike of the State and the nation, 
recognized the signal efficiency of his prompt and 
glorious valor. At that time nobody remembered 
his politics; nobody thought of him save as a pa- 
triotic soldier. 

After many weeks of repose, his active and dis- 
interested mind yearned for the scenes he had left, 
and his ardent nature panted to participate in the 
still progressing struggle. But his wound was of 
such a nature as to compel the utmost care, and 
he could only write to his friends and his wife and 
children at St. Louis by means of an amanuensis. 
He was wounded on the 3d of July, 1863, and a 
year after, July 4, 1864, his townsmen, at the 



150 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

instigation of several of his schoolmates, under the 
direction principally of B. C. Chain, Esq., of Nor- 
ristown, a service of gold and silver plate was pre- 
pared and presented to him. There were nine 
pieces elaborately embossed, bearing the following 
inscription ; 

TO 

MAJOR GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 

FROM 

CITIZENS OF HIS BIRTH-PLACE, 

NORRISTOWN, 

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, 

JULY 4th, 

1864. 

The cost of this testimonial was $1600, but the 
value to the recipient cannot be computed in silver 
or in gold. It is a pleasant reminder of the days 
spent as a boy in Norristown, and a proof more 
precious than jewels that the companions of his 
. youth had not forgotten him, nor the manly part 
he took in those early scenes. He had always 
been a leader among them, and this appropriate 
memorial was a new assurance that they held him 
worthy to be a commander of a great army of 
patriots as they now believe he has earned the 
higher honors of presiding over the nation it- 
self. 

Previous to these evidences of affection from his 
own people, he made a visit to New York, and 
stopped at the Fifth Avenue Hotel there, where he 
immediately began to make certain military 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 151 

arrangements on September 15, 1863, in order that 
he might hasten his return to the battle-field. 
The receptions that greeted him in his native 
county, in Philadelphia and other places, were fol- 
lowed up in the great metropolis ; and his greet- 
ing at West Point by his comrades-in-arms, was 
altogether remarkable. All of his fellow cadets 
were gone, some of the jorofessors had gone, but 
the scenes of other days came freshly back upon 
him, and he lived again in the haunts and studies 
of his young manhood. 

Now he proceeded to the home of his father-in- 
law, ^^Longwood," near St. Louis, Missouri, where 
his wife and children anxiously awaited him. 
Under date of October 12, 1863, he writes to his 
own father at Norristown : 

*' I threw aside my crutches a few days after my arrival, and now 
walk with a cane. I am improving, but do not yet walk without a lit- 
tle * roll.' My wound is still unhealed, tliough the doctors say it is 
closing rapidly. I find some uneasiness in sitting long on a chair, and 
cannot yet ride. The bone appears to be injured, and may give me 
trouble for a long time. I hope, however, I may be well enough ia 
two weeks to join my Corps. 

" I am busy in trimming up the forest trees in the lawn of ' Long- 
wood,' which covers nearly eleven acres. I know it is not the best 
time ; but still it will do. 
. *' Allie and the children send their best love to you and mother. ■ 

" Please give my best love to mother, and I remain, as ever, 
" Your affectionate son, 

WiNFiELD S. Hancock." 
*' To B. F. Hancock, Esq., Norristown, Pa." 



152 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

HANCOCK IN PHILADELPHIA AFTER THE BATTLE. 

Before General Hancock passed on to Norris- 
town, after the battle, he was compelled to stay 
over in Philadelphia for rest, and while here the 
city was ringing with the double victory of Vicks- 
burg and Gettysburg. He got here just as the news 
of Grant's thrilling capture of the Southern strong- 
hold became known, and he was besieged with the 
shouts of victory, but the shattered soldier was in 
a poor condition for company. My other friend, 
General Daniel E. Sickles, had just about that 
time come to Washington, where I met him, while 
life was hanging by a thread, the 10th of July, 
1863. The Press spoke of these two heroes as 
follows : 

" Major-General Winfield S. Hancock, commanding the 2d Army 
Corps of the Potomac, has arrived in this city, and is quartered at the 
La Pierre House. The General was wounded in the recent fight, while, 
like :jhe lamented Keynolds gallantly defending the soil of 'his native 
state. Genernal Hancock has been in all the battles of the Army of 
the Potomac, and is a brave and fearless officer, and has won for him- 
self the admiration of all our old veterans. Generals Hancock and 
Sickles were both wounded about the same time, but it was through 
tlieir united energy and determination that the rebels in their frightful 
charge were repulsed, and the victory of that day secured to our arms." 

On the same day TJie Press had the following 
from my correspondent at Gettysburg : 

July 3, 1863. — At 2 o'clock, p. m., Friday, Longstreet's whole corps 
advanced from the rebel centre. The enemy's forces wore hurled upon 
our position by columns in mass, and also in lines of battle. Our centre 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 153 

was held by General Hancock, with the noble old 2d Army Corps aided 
by a portion of the 1st Corps. The rebels opened a terrific artillery 
bombardment to demoralize our men, and then moved their forces with 
great impetuosity upon our position. Hancock received the attack with 
great firmness, and, after a furious battle lasting until five o'clock, the 
enemy were driven from the field, Longstreet's corps being almost 
annihilated. 

'* The battle was a most magnificent spectacle. It was fought on an 
open plain just south of Gettysburg, with not a troe to interrupt the 
view. The courage of our men was perfectly sublime. At 5 p. m., 
what was left of the enemy retreated in utter confusion, leaving dozens 
of flags, and General Hancock estimated at least five thousand killed 
and wounded on the field." 

" The battle was fought by General Hancock with splendid valor. 
He won imperishable honor, and General Meade thanked him in the 
name of the army and the country. He was wounded in the thigh, but 
remained on the field." 

How striking the contrast between this out- 
pouring of the popular heart and the howl of the 
ring office-holders to-day ! In 1863 there was not 
a Kepublican, scholar, mechanic, or merchant, 
that did not hold and proclaim these views and 
proudly class Hancock as his fellow-citizen. Now 
read also from The Press what the people did while 
Hancock was lying, as was supposed, at death's 
door : 

THE CIVIC CELEBRATION. 

THE CHESTNUT STREET THEATRE. 

No where was the Anniversary of our National Independence more 
appropriately or more spiritedly observed than at the new Chestnut 
Street Tlieatre, which was crowded in the evening. The stage was bril- 
liantly decked with American flags, and our National Anthems, "Hail 
Columbia," "Yankee Doodle" and the "Star Spangled Banner," were 



154 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

played by the Orchestra, with thrilling effect, the audience applauding 
repeatedly. Upon the rising of the curtain, Mrs. Bowers, personating 
the Goddess of Liberty, stepped forward with a handsome silk flag in 
hand and repeated Drake's immortal address to the American flag. At 
almost every couplet she was interrupted with the wildest bursts of en- 
thusiasm, and when she pronounced the closing stanza : 

" Flag of the free hearts' hope and home, 

By angel hands to valor given, 
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 

And all thy hues were born in Heaven I 
For ever float that standard sheet; 

Where breathes the foe but falls before us, 
With freedom's soil beneath our feet 

And freedom's banner streaming o'er us," 

the cheering was almost deafening. When she had concluded, the " Star 
Spangled Banner " was sung by the entire company, the solo being by 
Mrs. Charles Henri, Mrs. J. L. Barrett and Mr. J. L. Barrett. The 
" Peep O'Day," the great Irish sensation drama — a legitimate sensation 
— followed. As the period is the Rebellion of '98, many of the passages 
have an appropriate bearing on our own times, and Father O'Leary was 
loudly applauded when he expressed the hope that all the Confederates 
would imitate the example of the Peep O'Day boys, and lay down 
their arms. 

THE SPIRIT OF '76 AND THE FIRST PRAYER IN CONGRESS. 

As we stood in Independence Square yesterday, and listened to the 
echoing peals of the State-House bell, the following beautiful poem — 
perhaps we might call it prophecy — from the pen of a well-known citizen, 
recurred to our mind, and, amid the new associations of the hallowed 
place seemed invested with new meaning and beauty. It was sent us for 
publication by Mrs. B. J. Leedom : 

No self was there when the solemn prayer 

Arose from the patriot band 
Who stood in the night for God and the right 

Of freedom throughout the land. 
When the old bell toll'd on the summer air 
The spirit of Justice heard the prayer. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 155 

Fervent yet low were the words that flew 

From heart to heart that day, 
And hand grasped hand as the patriot band 

Prepared them for the fray, 
And the old bell toll'd so loud and clear, 
Our lives for our country we know no fear. 

From mountain and dell, at the sound of that bell 

Came the hardy children of toil; 
From valley and glen sprang the sturdy old men 

And the youth left the plough in the soil. 
"When the old bell rung, o'er the mountains afar 
The children of peace became veterans in war. 

Firm as a rock, they meet the shock 

Of England's serried band, 
And back from the coast they scattered the host 

Of the foeman from out the land, 
And the old bell rang through the summer trees, 
As the " Star Spangled Banner " was flung to the breeze. 

The tones that fell from that liberty bell 

Shall sweep over land and sea, 
Till the sceptre and crown shall tumble down, 

And the nations all are free. 
And the old bell spirit shall ring through the world 
Till the banner of Christ be alone unfurled. 

A PATRIOTIC COINCIDENCE. EDWIN FORREST ON 
GRANT AND HANCOCK. 

While our people were in the midsfc of felicitations 
over their release from the horrors incidental to a 
successful invasion, I made a visit with my intimate 
companion of many a year, Edwin Forrest, to the 
Cathedral, on 18th Street, near Race, Philadelphia, 
both of us having been invited to the hospitalities of 
Archbishop Wood, by my old friend, Father McCo- 



156 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

nomy, of Lancaster, since deceased, and sev- 
eral members of the church. They gave us a 
hearty welcome. Forrest was never more delight- 
ful. He literally kept the table in a roar. His full 
mind seemed to run over with reminiscences of 
his altogether charming and eventful life. Like 
the rest of the company, he was in high glee over 
the success of General Hancock at Gettysburg, 
taking opportunity to speak of his admiration of 
the gallant soldier; for Forrest, while an ardent 
patriot, was also a very ardent Democrat, and he 
was proud because so much glory and honor had 
been achieved by his friend. General Hancock. 

He repeated some of his finest recitations, among 
them that wonderful production, " The Idiot 
Boy," and seemed to be especially pleased at his 
capacity to make others pleased. One of the 
clerical gentlemen was so much carried away by 
the Idiot Boy, that he took down a copy of the 
poem itself And not only to present it to the 
readers of this hurried history, do I give it here, 
but because it marks the particular coincidence 
which I often referred to in after days, and which 
dear Forrest loved to talk about : 

THE IDIOT BOY. 

" It had pleased God to form poor Ned 
A thing of idiot mind, 
Yet, to the poor unreasoning boy, 
God had not been unkind. 



WINFIELD SCO TT HANCOCK. 157 

" Old Sarah loved her helpless child, 
Whom helplessness made dear ; 
And he was everything to her, 
Who knew no hope or fear. 

** She knew his wants, she understood 
Each half-articulate call. 
For he was everything to her, 
And she to him was all. 

" And so for many a year they lived. 
Nor knew a wish beside ; 
But age at last on Sarah came. 
And she fell sick — and died. 

"He tried in vain to waken her. 
He called her o'er and o'er ; 
They told him she was dead I 

The words to him no import bore. 

"They closed lier eyes and shrouded her. 
While he stood wondering by, 
And when they bore her to the grave, 
He followed silently. 

" They laid her in the narrow house. 
They sung the funeral stave ; 
And when the fun'ral train dispersed, 
He lingered by that grave. 

** The rabble boys that used to jeer 
Whene'er they saw poor Ned, 
Now stood and watched him by the grave. 
And not a word* they said. 

" They came and went and came again, 
Till night at last came on ; 
Yet still he lingered by the grave. 
Till every one had gone. 



158 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

** And when he found himself alone, 
He swift removed the clay ; 
Then raised the coffin up in haste. 
And bore it swift away. 

**He bore it to his mother's cot, 
And laid it on the floor, 
And with the eagerness of joy 
He barred the cottage door. 

" Then out he took his mother's corpse, 
And placed it on a chair ; 
And soon he heaped the hearth, 

And made the kindling fire wit'h care. 

" He had put his mother in her chair, 
And in its wonted place, 
And then he blew the fire, which shcrne,i 
Beflected in her face. 

" And, pausing now, her hand would feel, 

And then her face behold : 
" * Why, mother do you look so pale. 

And why are you so cold V 

" It had pleased God from the poor wretch 
His only friend to call ; 
Yet God was kind to him, and soon 
In death restored him alt?' 

After Forrest had delighted our little company, 
we said good-by to the agreeable hosts, and quietly 
walked in the dark over to Chestnut street, when 
he said to me, ''What is the matter with the town, 
it seems to be unusually light? Is it a fire? Or 
is it a jubilee?" It was the 6th of July, 1863 — 
when he answered his own question — " Great 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 1()1 

heavens ! I think Vicksburg has fallen." And so 
it proved to be. In the midst of our rejoicing over 
the victory at Gettysburg, won chiefly by General 
Hancock, a Pennsylvanian, here came the intelli- 
gence that on the same anniversary of Ameri- 
can independence, another friend of Forrest, Gen- 
eral Ulysses S. Grant, had captured that great point 
on the Mississippi River, and so forever re-opened 
that pathway to the sea. 

What a jolly night it was ! what a supplement 
and sequel to the unparalleled Saturday and Sun- 
day before, when the masses of all parties rose, 
full of gratitude for the victory of Gettysburg. 
And now, as if God Himself had directed the 
similarity, while our sacred flag was floating in 
triumph over the Confederates at one point, a 
victory almost as essential was achieved under 
the same banner at apother. 

How eloquent Forrest was that evening ! how 
full of praise of Grant ! how the democratic poli- 
tics of my dramatic friend broke out! "Here 
we have two of the grandest achievements in 
history ; two of the most decisive victories for 
liberty; two events that will close out this hateful 
war and finally bring peace and brotherhood to 
this distracted nation, and won by two democrats! 
What have you got to say to that, my black re- 
j)ublican friend?" He was so delighted with the 
night, that I never saw him in finer spirits. The 
world never produced a more interesting man, and 
11 



162 LIFE AND PUBLIC CABEEB OF 

I think he had no equal on any stage, American or 
European. Poor Forrest ! He has gone to his long 
home, and we ne'er shall look upon his like again. 

It was indeed a remarkable coincidence. The 
news came by a despatch from acting Rear Ad- 
miral Porter, dated Flag-ship '' Black Hawk," 
July 4th, 1863, as follows: "I have the honor to 
inform you that Yicksburg has surrendered to the 
United States forces on this 4 th of July." 

In the evening of the 5th, President Lincoln 
made a great speech from the Executive Mansion 
in the city of Washington, in which he spoke of 
the magnificent courage of the troops at Gettys- 
burg, who fought so , rapidly, that their victories ' 
might be called " one great battle ! " Stanton suc- 
ceeded in a speech in which he referred in high 
eulogy to the recent deeds of the Army of the Po- 
tomac at Gettysburg. Gen. Halleck, Senators Wil- 
son, Wilkinson, Lane, of Kansas ; Representatives 
Washburn and Arnold also made speeches. Mr. 
Seward in reply remarked that '' No nation could 
be saved without sacrifices ; that if he could not 
save the country, he was here at the expense of 
all he held dear, he wished to be buried in its 
ruins." 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 163 



CUAPTER Y, 

EDWARD EVERETT AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

PLEADING FOR RECONCILIATION WITH THE SOUTH ON THE BATTLE- 
FIELD OF GETTYSBURG SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO. 

IT will be seventeen years on the 19th of next 
November since I stood at the side of Edward 
Everett and Abraham Lincoln, at the dedication 
of the Gettysburg Cemetery, and heard those two 
historic men, a singular contrast to each other, the 
one the rugged, simple, honest, unsectional Presi- 
dent of the United States, the other the polished, 
conservative, yet glowing and classic orator of 
Massachusetts, speaking above the graves of the 
martyrs who fell at Gettysburg on the 1st, 2d and 
3d of July j)revious, in the hearing of living 
thousands before and around them. Among those 
on the stand were Secretary of State Seward, the 
Ministers of France and Italy, the French Admi- 
ral, Governor Curtin, who had just been re-elected 
by a tremendous majority, members of Con- 
gress and many representatives of the army and 



164 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

the navy. " One of the most impressive features 
of the solemnity," says Mr. David Wills, of Get- 
tysburg, (whose unwearied labors in the organiza- 
tion and completion of this Campo Santo on Ceme- 
tery Hill ought never to be forgotten) " in the pro- 
cession and on the grounds was a delegation of 
about fifty wounded soldiers of the Army of the 
Potomac from the York hospital. These men had 
been wounded at the battle of Gettysburg, and 
were present with the delegation to pay this just 
tribute to the remains of their fallen comrades. 
During the exercises their blanched cheeks were 
frequently suffused with tears." 

Mr. Lincoln's benediction — I will not call it a 
speech — is almost as familiar as the Lord's prayer, 
and the oration of Mr. Everett, grand and w^on- 
derful as it was thrilled the world ; yet Mr. Eve- 
rett said to Mr. Lincoln, at the close of this 
unrivalled address, ^^Ah ! Mr. Lincoln, I would 
gladly give all my forty pages for your twenty 
lines." 

Of Mr. Everett's masterful discourse I wrote from 
Washington on the 25th of November, 1863, an 
follows : 

'' What 1 wish to hint this morning is, that the friends of the Union 
should preserve and promulgate the l ruths he has set forth. Principles 
and maxima which are the offspring of eternal truth, can never be im- 
proved upon. There is nothing more exact, and severe, and unde- 
viating than the right. But there are many ways to illustrate and 
defend the right ; many ways to make plain principle look brighter to 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 165 

the common mind ; many ways to strengthen and enforce the un. 
changing maxims of good government and good men." 

And yet, seventeen years ago Abraham Lincoln 
and Edward Everett both pleaded for peace on the 
battle-field still ridged with the graves of the mar- 
tyrs, and both predicted the reconciliation of the 
sections. Edward Everett himself, spoke these 
wonderful words : 

Everett's oration. 

No man can deplore more than I do^ the miseries of every kind una- 
voidably incident to war. Who could stand in this spot and call to 
mind the scenes of the first day of July with any other feelings. ? A sad 
foreboding of what would ensue if war should break out between North 
and South, has haunted me through life, and led me, perhaps too long, 
to tread in the path of hopeless compromise, in the fond endeavor to con- 
ciliate those who were p re-determined not to be conciliated. But it is 
not true, as it is pretended by the Kebels and their sympathizers, that 
the war has been carried on by the United States without entire regard 
to those temperaments which are enjoined by the law of nations, by 
our modern civilization, and by the spirit of Christianity. It would 
be quite easy to point out, in the recent military history of the leading 
European powers, acts of violence and cruelty, in the prosecution of 
their wars, to which no parallel can be found among us. 

In fact, when we consider the peculiar bitterness with which civil 
wars are almost invariably waged, we may justly boast of the manner 
in which the United States have carried on the contest. It is of 
course impossible to prevent the lawless acts of stragglers and deserters, 
or the occasional unwarrantable proceedings of subordinates on distant 
stations ; but I do not believe there is, in all history, the record of a 
civil war of such gigantic dimensions where so little has ueen done in 
the spirit of vindictiveness as in this war, by the Government and com- 
manders of the United States. 

No, my friends, that gracious Providence which overrules all things 



166 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

for the best, " from seeming evil still educing good," has so constituted 
our natures, that tlie violent excitement of the passions in one direction 
is generally followed by a reaction in the opposite direction, and the 
sooner for the violence. If it were not so — if injuries inflicted and 
retaliated of necessity led to new retaliations, with forever accumulating 
compound interest of revenge, then the world, thousands of years ago, 
would have been turned into an earthly hell, and the nations of the 
earth would have been resolved into clans of furies and demons, each 
forever warring with his neighbor. But it is not so ; all history teaches 
a diflferent lesson. The wars of the Koses in England lasted an entire 
generation, from the battle of St. Albans in 1455, to that of Bosworth 
Field, in 1485. Speaking of the former, Hume says : " This was the first 
blood spilt in that fatal quarrel, which was not finished in less than a 
course of thirty years ; which was signalized by twelve pitched battles ; 
which opened a scene of extraordinary fierceness and cruelty, is com- 
puted to have cost the lives of eighty princes of the blood, and almost 
entirely annihilated the ancient nobility of England. The strong attach- 
ments which at that time men of the same kindred bore to each other, 
and the vindictive spirit which was considered a point of honor, ren- 
dered the great families implacable in their resentments and widened 
every moment the breach between the parties."" Such was the state of 
things in England, under which an entire generation grew up; but 
when Henry VII, in whom the titles of the two houses were united, 
went up to London aftej: the battle of Bosworth Field, to mount the 
throne, he was everywhere received with joyous acclamations, "as 
one ordained and sent from heaven to put an end to the dissensions " 
which had so long afilicted the country. 

The great Rebellion in England of the seventeenth century, after long 
and angry premonitions, may be said to have begun with the calling 
of the Long Parliament in 1640, and to have ended with the return of 
Charles II, in 1650, — twenty years of discord, conflict and civil war, of 
confiscation, plunder, havoc; a proud hereditary peerage trampled in 
the dust, a national church overturned, its clergy beggared, its most 
eminent prelate put to death, a military despotism established on the 
ruins of a monarchy which had subsisted seven hundred years, and the 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 167 

legitimate sovereign brought to the block ; the great families which ad- 
hered to the king proscribed, impoverished, ruined ; prisoners of war — 
a fate worse than starvation in Libby — sold to slavery in the West In- 
dies ; in a word, everything that can embitter and madden contending 
factions. Such was the state of things for twenty years, and yet, by no 
gentle transition, but suddenly, and '' when the restoration of affairs 
appeared most hopeless," the son of the beheaded sovereign was brought 
back to his father's blood-stained throne, with such ''inexpressible and 
universal joy," as led the merry monarch to exclaim, "He doubted it 
had been his own fault he had been absent so long, for he saw nobody 
who did not protest he had ever wished for his return." '' In this 
wonderful manner,'' says Clarendon, ''and with this incredible expedi- 
tion did God put an end to a rebellion that had raged near twenty 
years, and had been carried on with all the horrid circumstances of 
murder, devastation, and parricide, that fire and sword, in the hands of 
the most wicked men in the world" [it is a royalist that is speaking,} 
"could be the -instruments of, almost to the desolation of two king- 
doms, and the exceeding defacing and deforming of the third By 

these remarkable steps did the merciful hand of God, in this short space 
of time, not only bind up and heal all those wounds, but even made the 
scar as undiscernible as, in respect of the deepness, was possible, which 
was a glorious addition to the deliverance. 

In Germany, the wars of the Keformation of Charles V., in the six- 
teenth century ; the Thirty Years' War in the seventeenth century ; 
the Seven Years' War in the eighteenth century, not to speak of other 
less celebrated contests, entailed upon that country all the miseries of 
intestine strife for more than three centuries. At the close of the last- 
named war — which was the shortest of all, and waged in a most civi- 
lized age—" an officer," says Archenholz, " rode through seven villages 
in Hesse, and found in them but one human being." More than three 
hundred principalities, comprehended in the Empire, fermented with 
fierce passions of proud and petty states ; at the commencement of this 
period, the castles of robber counts frowned upon every hill-top ; a 
dreadful secret tribunal, whose seat no one knew, whose power none 
could escape, froze the hearts of men with terror throughout the land 



168 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

religious hatred mingled its bitter poison in the seething cauldron of 
provincial animosity : but of all these dreadful enmitjes between the 
states of Germany, scarcely the memory remains. There are controver- 
sies in that country at the present day, but they grow mainly out of 
rivalry of the two leading powers. There is no country in the world 
in which the sentiment of national brotherhood is stronger. 

In Italy, on the breaking up of the Koman Empire, society might be 
said to be resolved into its original elements — into hostile atoms, whose 
only movement was that of mutual repulsion. Euthless barbarians had 
destroyed the old organizations, and covered the land with a merciless 
feudalism. As the new civilization sprang up, under the wing of the 
Church, the noble families and the walled towns, fell madly into the 
conflict with each other; the secular feud of "Pope and Emperor 
scourged the land, province against province, city against city, street 
against street, waged remorseless war with each other from father to 
son. till Dante was able to fill his imaginary hell with the real demons 
of Italian history. So ferocious had the factions become that the great 
poet-exile himself, the glory of his native city and of his native lan- 
guage, was, by a decree of the municipality, condemned to be burned 
alive if found in the city of Florence. But these deadly feuds and 
hatreds yielded to political influences, as the hostile cities were grouped 
into states under stable governments ; the lingering traditions of the 
ancient animosities gradually died away, and now Tuscan and Lom- 
bard, Sardinian and Neapolitan, as if to shame the degenerate sons of 
America, are joining in one cry for a united Italy. 

In France, not to go back to the civil wars of the League in the 
sixteenth century, and of the Fronde, in the seventeenth ; not to speak 
of the dreadful scenes throughout the kingdom, which followed the 
revocation of the Edict of Nantes ; we have, in the great revolution 
which commenced at the close of the last century, seen the blood- 
hounds of civil strife let loose as rarely before in the history of the 
world. The Reign of Terror, established at Paris, stretched its bloody 
Briarean arms to every city and village in the land, and if the most dead- 
ly feuds that ever divided a people, had the power to cause permanent 
alienation and hatred, this surely was the occasion. But far otherwise 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 169 

the fact. In seven years from the fall of Kobespierre, the strong arm 
of the youthful conqueror brought order out of this chaos of crime and 
woe. Jacobins whose hands were scarcely cleaned from the best blood 
of France met the returning emigrants, whose estates they had confis- 
cated, and whose kindred they had dragged to the guillotine, in the 
Imperial antechambers ; and when, after another turn of the wheel of 
fortune, Louis XVIII. was restored to his throne, he took the regicide 
Fouch^, who had voted for his brother's death, to his cabinet and 
confidence. 

And now, friends, fellow-citizens of Gettysburg and Pennsylvania, 
and you from remoter States, let me again, as we part, invoke your be- 
nediction on these honored graves. You feel, though the occasion is 
mournful that it is good to be here. You feel that it is greatly auspi- 
cious for the cause of the country that the men of the East and the men 
of the West, the men of nineteen sister States, stood side by side on 
the perilous ridges of the battle. We now feel it a new bond of union, 
that they shall lie side by side, till a clarion, louder than that which 
marshals them to combat, shall awake their slumbers. God bless the 
Union, — it is dearer to us for the blood of brave men which has been 
shed in its defense. The spots on which they stood and fell, these plea- 
sant heights, the fertile plain beneath them, the thriving village whose 
streets so lately rang with the strange din of war, the fields beyond the 
ridge, where the noble Keynolds held the advancing foe at bay, and 
while he gave up his own life, assured by his forethought and self sacri- 
fice, the triumph of the two succeeding days, the little streams which 
wind through the hills, on whose banks in after times the wondering 
plowman will turn up with the rude weapons of savage warfare, the 
fearful missiles of modern artillery ; Seminary Kidge, the Peach Orch- 
ard, Cemetery, Gulp, and Wolf Hill, Koundtop, Little Eoundtop, humble 
names, henceforward dear and famous, — no lapse of time, no distance 
of space, shall cause you to be forgotten. '' The whole earth," said 
Pericles, as he stoo(i over the remains of his fellow- citizens who had 
fallen in the first year of the Peloponnesian war, *' the whole earth is a 
sepulchre of illustrious men." All time, he might have added, is the 
millennium of their glory. Surely I would do no injustice to the other 



170 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

noble achievements of the war, which have reflected such honor on 
both arms of the service, and have entitled the armies and the navy of 
the United States, their officers and men, to the warmest thanks and the 
richest rewards which a grateful people can pay. But they, I am sure, 
will join us in saying, as we bid farewell to the dust of these martyr- 
heroes, that wheresoever throughout the civilized world the accounts of 
this great warfare are read, and down to the latest period of recorded 
time in the glorious annals of our common country there will be no 
brighter page than that which relates to the Battle of Gettysburg." 

Seventeen years have elapsed since this splen- 
did prophecy was made, and so far as most of 
the Republican partisans in the United States 
are concerned, there is still no peace. The South is 
still distrusted by these politicians ; commerce, 
industry, trade, manufactures and the religious 
bodies of all denominations, and the masses of our 
people, all hunger for peace and friendship and 
reconciliation. Only place-seekers and placemen 
protest against the universal petition and prayer. 

Both these remarkable men have passed away ; 
Abraham Lincoln on the 14th of April, 1865, 
even while he was pledging the nation to for- 
giveness of the misguided men who had taken up 
arms against it, and Edward Everett January 
15th, 1865, a little less than three months pre- 
vious. 

It will be recollected that only three days 
before Lincoln's assassination, when he spoke from 
the portals of the White House, while the old flag 
was wreathed in victory, the heart of the great 
people palpitating with relief from civil war, he 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 171 

had nothing to say for the South but kindness, 
even punctuating his very last public address by 
humorously remarking that, " We have captured 
the Confederacy; and ^ Dixie' must be played with 
Yankee Doodle and the Star-Spangled Banner/' 

It is a simple question whether, as against ail 
these memories of the past and all these hopes of 
the present; whether, when everything is demand- 
ing oblivion to painful recollections, that the des- 
perate party managers for their own sake should 
be permitted to stand in the way ? How wonder- 
fully Mr. Everett's prophecies have been fulfilled ! 
How in dissipating faction, calumny, and all man- 
ner of human weakness ; how, above all, in despite 
of the plots and counterplots of the politicians, 
the great cause of civilization continues to grow. 

Washington Irving tells us that ''from the grave 
the flowers of charity eternally spring." And if this 
be true of one grave, how much more true should 
it be of a million graves? Besides, in our coun- 
try more than any other, with its latitudes and- 
moving masses, with its varied productions and 
populations, with its changing skies and changing 
opinions, there is a perennial and eternal motive 
for the oblivion of national prejudices. What Mr. 
Everett said nearly seventeen years ago, like the 
seed blown along the breezes to all quarters of the 
world, has ever since been growing and producing 
and multiplying. 



172 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

HANCOCK CARRIES THE FLAG OF RE-UNION. 

Both of these great men were statesman ; both 
old line Henry Clay Whigs ; never radical, never 
unreasonable, always forgiving. Everett's cosmo- 
politan education, his diplomatic experience, his 
gentle character, made him judicial and philoso- 
phic. Lincoln, born in Hardin County, Ken- 
tucky, reared in Illinois, trained to border life, 
simple, honest, and too full of humor to be a fierce 
partisan, was the very best type of a tolerant and 
patient philanthropist. If Lincoln and Everett were 
alive to-day they w^ould be precisely where Horace 
Greeley, Andrew G. Curtin, and Charles Sum- 
ner stood in 1872 ; they would be for Hancock, 
because while Hancock carried the flag of the 
Union at Gettysburg, he now carries the flag of 
re-union. Lincoln and Everett would ask " How 
long, Lord, how long is this unfriendly sectional 
feud to be protracted? " This was the lesson of their 
too gentle and forgiving lives; and in the exqui- 
site chapter you have just read from the Gettys- 
burg oration (by the great speaker wdio pronounced 
his celebrated discourse on Washington over one 
hundred times, in order that the ladies of both 
sections might purchase the home and grave of the 
father of his country) he propounded and illus- 
trated those unrivalled teachings which, first 
taught by our Saviour on the Mount, will continue 
to grow among men and to guide and control civil- 
ization through countless ages. I grant that the 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 173 

Southern authors of our civil war, as they now all 
admit themselves, assumed a terrible responsibil- 
ity. But as you read the experience of other na- 
tions, does not the question come quick to your 
lips, What possible good can accrue to any party 
in this country by prolonging a sectional conflict ? 

Modern history repeats the ancient story so mag- 
nificently recalled by the splendid rhetorician, Ed- 
ward Everett. France has just completed the full 
amnesty of the returning communists ; and when, 
during Louis Napoleon's reign, he pardoned some 
prisoners who had organized a conspiracy for which 
they were banished the empire, one of his courtiers 
wanted to know if he did not think the exercise 
of such clemency was dangerous ? His reply, 
even from the lips of a man who perjured himself 
afterwards and plunged his country into an unne- 
cessary war with Germany, returns now as a star 
to light our own way in the path of complete for- 
giveness of our own offenders ^'If my Govern- 
ment," said the Emperor, "cannot afford to let these 
men free, my Government does not deserve to 
live." 

But in this case the election of General Han- 
cock is a new sacrament of the great act of the 
amnesty, well prefigured by Edward Everett on 
the sacred soil of Gettysburg, and afterwards de- 
manded, in the Senate Chamber of the United 
States, by that greater Senator from Massachusetts, 
Charles Sumner. It is not even humanity that we 



174 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

should continue to encourage what is popularly 
called a solid South; and there is but one way to 
dissolve that same solid South, and that is to show 
the spirit manifested by Louis Napoleon to the 
men who offended him twenty years ago. You 
must trust those you forgive, or there can be no 
confidence. What true American is afraid to trust 
the South? Have we, within the last ten years, 
as Republicans, earned so supreme a title to the 
possession of this Government and to the confi- 
dence of this people, that we should insist upon 
the perpetual possession of national power? Are 
we authorized to proscribe? Are our prerogatives 
so God-like? I think not. And is it true wisdom 
to maintain a bitter, acrid, angry population on our 
flanks after forgiving them, after restoring them to 
all their franchises, only to gratify the worst 
elements of the North ? For it cannot be denied 
that in a great degree the Republican leadership 
has fallen into the hands of men who have not only 
forgotten great Republican ideas, but have 
turned the Republican party into a mere machine 
for personal profit or personal punishment. Our 
civil war has been the energetic educator of both 
sides; the war has been an evangelist; the war has 
been a revolutionist; the war has been a school- 
master to whites and to blacks ; and if to-morrow 
General Hancock were inaugurated President of 
the United States, no matter how anxious some of 
the Confederate politicians might be to restore 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 1 75 

certain ancient abuses, the very education of the 
war would not only restrain, but admonish and 
over-awe them. 

Suppose the tables had been turned ? Suppose 
slavery had been fastened upon us at the North, 
feeding us, enriching us, spoiling us ? I think we 
should have contended quite as lustily and as 
bravely as the South did to retain so useful and 
gratuitous a contributor. Thus in the long run, 
before we conclude to maintain the crusade against 
another people, our own blood and brawn, let us 
quietly put on. the shoes of these offenders our- 
selves, and try how we would act in their circum- 
stances. 

Seventeen years are long Enough to keep any 
people in a political purgatory, long enough to 
hold any people in a party quarantine, long 
enough to fetter in the prison-house of sectional- 
ism eight millions of our own brothers. What 
does the modern partizan fear whenever an at- 
tempt is made by the Southern people to enter 
into a share of the government, which we our- 
selves voluntarily promised them, when in ex- 
change for universal suffrage, we proffered them 
universal amnesty ? What do these men of the 
North who incidentally hold the purse-strings, the 
money of our municipalities and States, and who 
hold them, as well for their own purposes of parti- 
zan jDlunder, as for their other purposes of politi- 
cal punishment, what do they fear? Not that the 



1 76 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Democratic party, under its new inspiration, not 
that the Democratic party with Hancock, who 
carried the flag of the Union to victory at Gettys- 
burg, would ravage and ruin that same Union 
when he carries the flag of re-union : not that. 
The fear of the modern partizans who have now 
control of the Republican party is, that General 
Hancock, as President of the United States, may 
be too wise, may be too modest, may be too 
national — the fear that he will preserve the great 
franchises and guarantees secured in the settle- 
ment that succeeded the peace of Appomattox be- 
tween Lee and Grant. This outcry against Han- 
cock because he remains a Democrat, as half a 
million of veterans remain who fought in the late 
war, springs only from the misapprehension that 
our great national soldier may be so prudent and 
so careful that his party may be kept in power 
as long as the Republican party itself. And if 
this be so, who will not thank God for it ; if by 
such a compromise we can dissolve the solid South 
and consolidate the whole Union into one, who 
will not rejoice ? 

ORDERED TO WASHINGTON. 

On the loth of December, 1863, Hancock was 
again ordered to Washington. His Gettysburg 
wound was not yet healed, but he obeyed the 
order with alacrity, and immediately reported 
himself for duty at the War Department. 




Battle of Fredericksburg. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 179 

It was during this period that he was talked of 
in influential circles for the command of the Army 
of the Potomac. There is no impropriety in stat- 
ing that it w^as at one time seriously contemplated 
to place him in this position. He, however, did 
not seek it; neither did his friends seek it for him. 
On the contrary, he disclaimed all such desire ; 
and the most active of his immediate counsellors 
were strenuous in their efforts to dissuade him 
from accepting the command. On all becoming 
occasions he expressed the opinion that General 
Meade was the man for the post ; and that if he 
were continued in active command and properly 
supported by the authorities and the country, he 
would win great victories. Passing results have 
shown the wisdom as well as the magnanimity of 
General Hancock in this matter. He well knew 
by experience the obstacles in the way to success 
with that arm}^ at that peculiar juncture; and, 
therefore, as we have said, he did not seek the ap- 
pointment, neither did he desire his friends to seek 
it for him. There is good reason for stating, how- 
ever, that if Gen. Meade had made a request to be 
relieved, General Hancock would have relieved 
him. 

He was soon detailed to the responsible work of 
increasing the ranks of the army, by his personal 
presence and exertions. Authority w^as given him 
to augment his corps to fifty thousand effective 
men. His headquarters were established at Har- 



180 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

risburg, the capital of his native State, and he im- 
mediately proceeded to the work among his fellow 
Pennsylvanians. His language and measures on 
the occasion were well chosen, and to the point, 
his object being to recruit in all the States repre- 
sented in the Second Corps. 

Addressing the people of Pennsylvania, from 
his headquarters, at Harrisburg, under date of 
January 15, 1864, he says: 

**I have come among you as a Pennsylvanian, for the purpose of en- 
deavoring to aid you in stimulating enlistments. This is a matter of 
interest to all of the citizens of the State. I earnestly call upon you all 
to assist, by the exertion of all the influence in your power, in this im- 
portant matter. 

" To adequately reinforce our armies in the field is to insure that the 
war will not reach your homes. It will be the meams of bringing it to 
a speedy and happy conclusion. It will save the lives of many of our 
brave soldiers, who would otherwise be lost by the prolongation of the 
war, and in indecisive battles. 

" It is only necessary to destroy the rebel armies now in the field, to 
insure a speedy and permanent peace. Let us all act with that fact in 
view. 

"Let it not be said that Pennsylvania, which has already given so 
many of her sons to this righteous cause, shall now, at the eleventh 
hour, be behind her sister States in furnishing her quota of the men 
deemed necessary to end this rebellion. Let it not be that those Penn- 
sylvania regiments, now so depleted, that have won for themselves bo 
much honor in the field, shall pass out of existence, for want of patriot- 
ism in the people. 

WiNFiELD S. Hancock, 

Major General U. S. Volunteers." 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 181 

His success in recruiting was equal to the ex- 
pectations formed. Subsequent events have well 
attested the efficiency of his measures. Facilities 
for carrying out his patriotic design were offered 
him in the cities of New York, Albany, Boston, 
and other places. 

At Philadelphia, in the ensuing month of Feb- 
ruary, public demonstrations of respect awaited 
him. The city government passed a series of re- 
solutions, introduced by one of his former play- 
mates at Norristown, then a member of the coun- 
cils, John W. Everman, Esq., of which we here 
present a copy : 

SELECT AND COMMON COUNCILS ] 

OF THE y 

CITY OF PHILADELPHIA. ] 

WELCOME 

TO 

MAJOK GENEKAL WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 

Resolved, By the Select and Common Councils of the 

CITY OF PHIIiADEIiPHIA, 

That the thanks of the Citizens of Philadelphia are eminently due, 
and are hereby tendered to 

MAJOR GENERAL HANCOCK, 

for his brilliant services in the cause of the Union, during the present 
unholy Rebellion against the authority of the Government and 
People of the United States. 

Resolved, That the use of Independence Hall be granted to Major 
General Hancock, for the reception of his friends, and in order to 
afford the Citizens of Philadelphia an opportunity to testify their per- 



182 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

sonal regard for him, and tlieir appreciation of his gallantry and 
patriotism. 

Resolved, That the Mayor of Philadelphia and the Presidents of 
Councils be requested to carry these resolutions into effect, and that the 
Clerks of Councils be requested to furnish a copy of the same to Gen- 
eral Hancock. 

Alexand'e, J. Harper, 

President of the Common Council. 

[city seal.] James Lynd, 

President of the Select Council. 

Attest : Wm. F. Small, 

Clerk of Common Council. 
Approved February 18th, 1864. 

Alex. Henry, 

Mayor. 

The reception of the General and his friends 
followed soon after, in Independence Hall. The 
papers of the day describe the scene as one of the 
most imposing that ever occurred within the walls 
of the sacred old temple of American liberty. 

On the ensuing 22d of February, the anniver- 
sary of the birthday of Washington, General Han- 
cock reviewed the volunteer troops of Philadelphia 
and vicinity. The parade passed oiF in the most 
spirited manner. The appearance of the General 
on the field, surrounded by a brilliant staff, pass- 
ing along the line with the troops arranged as if in 
battle array, was full of excitement, and called 
forth the loud plaudits of the immense throng of 
citizens who witnessed the display. 

At the close of the review an incident of a per- 
sonal character occurred, which we narrate here, 
as in keeping with the man and the scope of our 
book. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 183 

The General had dismounted, at the close of the 
day, and was about passing up the steps of the La 
Pierre House, surrounded by the officers who es- 
corted him, when his eye caught that of one of his 
teachers in Norristown, Mr. E. Eoberts, who was 
standing, with his daughter, near the entrance to 
the hotel. The General paused, and extending his 
hand to the two friends of his early years, ex- 
pressed his pleasure at meeting them, and intro- 
duced them to the gentlemen present. It was a 
singular but agreeable meeting between the old 
teacher and the now distinguished scholar. 

"Call and see me at the hotel, Mr. Roberts, 
when I am more at leisure," said the General. 
" When I am a little stronger from the eifects of 
my wound, I will return the call." At the ap- 
pointed time, the teacher and scholar met again. 
As Mr. Roberts entered the private room of the 
General, at the La Pierre, he was lying on his 
couch, suiFering from the fatigue to which the 
review of the previous day had subjected his 
wounded limb. But he rose at once to pay the 
respect due from a good scholar to a good teacher. 
"Do not rise. General Hancock," said Mr. Roberts; 
"I feel, sir, that you are laying me under too 
much obligation by doing so." "No, Mr. Roberts," 
the General replied, "I shall always feel, sir, that 
I am under obligations to you." " It is sufficient 
honor for me. General, to have had you for a 
scholar." '^No, sir. I feel that my teachers have 



184 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

all honored me. Beside, sir, you are much the 
older man of the two; and my parents always 
taught me to reverence grey hairs." " I did not 
have grey hairs when you first knew me, Gen- 
eral." " True, sir. Our mutual obligations were 
formed when we were both younger than now. 
But I cannot omit to use my anatomy now, even 
if it is impaired. Let me be ever so old^ I can 
never forget my school-teachers. I feel that my 
experience in life has proved this to be true : as 
is the teacher, so is the school-boy; as is the 
school-boy, so is the man." Other parties calling 
in, this interesting interview was closed. But not 
long after the General took his son Russell with 
him, and called on his old teacher. "This gentle- 
man, my son," said the General, "is one of the 
teachers of your father, when, like you, he was a 
boy. Remember always to respect the teacher of 
your youth; and, should you live to become a 
man, you will never regret it." 

Tuesday, July 12,1880, I had a visit from this 
Mr. Roberts, the same venerable teacher of Gen. 
Hancock, still living at 1516 Willington St., Phila- 
delphia, in his eighty-fourth year. He laid before 
me, in his own clear handwriting, the following 
simple memoir of the General, and accompanied it 
with the declaration that he had always been a 
consistent Republican, but that he would cheerfully 
vote for his affectionate pupil and his constant 
friend • 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 185 

*' The recollections of the boyhood of General Winfield S. Hancock 
while for seven years my pupil in the Norristown Academy, remind 
me of some of the early traits of his character, subsequently so fully 
developed in the man. One of these traits was devotedness to his mother. 
This was manifested in his solicitude to lighten the burden of her do- 
mestic cares. One circumstance will illustrate this trait, as well as 
that which so distinguished the Oeneral. 

One morning, while engaged in the performance of his filial duties, a 
rude boy, passing by, taunted him. This aroused that spirit, so con- 
spicuously exhibited at Williamsburg, Fredericksburg and Antietam, 
at Gettysburg and Spofftsylvania. Rushing out with a household- 
implement in his hand, and head bared, he pursued the offender for a 
long distance through the principal street in the village — as it then was 
— thoroughly chaistising him for the insult. I think he never after 
had occasion to resent a like indignity. 

Another of these early recollections was a Fourth of July celebration, 
in which the Sunday-schools connected with the Presbyterian, Episco- 
pal and Baptist Churches participated. The place was a pleasant grove 
in the vicinity. Being requested by the pastor of the Presbyterian 
Church to name some of the boys of the Academy to participate in the 
exercises of reading and declamation, I selected Winfield S. Hancock 
to read the Declaration of Independence. He performed his part in a 
very creditable manner. 

On meeting him after an interval of more than twenty-five years, 
during which we had not met, he spoke of this as among the recollec- 
tions of his boyhood, notwithstanding the terrible scenes through which 
he had so recently passed at Gettysburg. 

Among the cherished recollections of the boy Winfield are some of a 
more personal character, being connected with the burials of my little 
boy and girl. On both occasions he acted as pall-bearer. 

Of those boys who thus officiated, the General and his twin-brother 
are the only survivors. E. Roberts." 

It is this spirit of the man that stamps the 
name of Hancock with peculiar honor. He was 



186 LIFE AND FUBLIG CAREER OF 

always the same among his soldiers. An officer of 
the staff of another distinguished General, in al- 
luding to this attribute of Hancock's character, 
says of him : " Tlie attachment that he manifests 
for his brave soldiers is remarkable. While he 
despises a coward, if the humblest man in the 
ranks should be the first to enter Richmond as a 
conqueror, General Hancock would be among the 
first to do him honor." 

Passing from Philadelphia to New York, he was 
received in the latter city with much distinction. 
The Governor's room, in the City Hall, was placed 
at his disposal, for the reception of his friends, and 
every measure adopted that could be of aid to him 
in procuring recruits for his corps. A large number 
of his troops were from the Empire State. They 
were so much attached to his person, and their ac- 
quaintances at home so participated in the feeling 
of attachment, that when he presented himself to 
the people he was claimed by them as a New 
Yorker. This impression became so common, for 
a time, that one of the publishers of that city an- 
nounced a volume on his life as a New York Gen- 
eral. 

Passing to Albany, the capital of the State of 
New York^ the Legislature paid him an official 
tribute of respect for his distinguished services to 
the country. 

The same honors were bestowed upon him in 
Boston, the capital of Massachusetts, where the 



W INFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 187 

general court invited him to their representative 
chamber, and where the merchants and other citi- 
zens waited upon him at the City Exchange. His 
agreeable manners, added to his well-known cour- 
age and skill in battle, created the most favorable 
impressions wherever he went on his tour of duty 
through New England. Patriotic applause greeted 
him at every point, and a considerable number of 
fighting recruits flocked to his standard. 

REFLECTIONS ON THE BATTLE-FIELD OF GETTYSBURG. 

The present condition of the battle-field of 
Gettysburg, like the present condition of the great 
theatres of war in other countries, confirms and 
emphasizes the idea of Landseer s touching pic- 
ture of Peace. The dismantled artillery deeply 
embedded in the rich soil, covered with the debris 
of time, and the innocent lamb quietly feeding 
upon the sweet herbage growing in the silent 
cannon's mouth, is beautifully typified. The scene 
itself is so tranquil, the Soldier's Cemetery, such an 
exquisite Campo Santo, and the artistic mau- 
soleum of the dead who fell that the nation might 
live, so eloquent, that I am disposed to hope the 
day will come when the surviving veterans on 
both sides, and the survivors' sons, — those who 
fought on the first, second and third days of July, 
1863, the citizen soldiery from the North and the 
South, and the reconciled people of all the States, 
including every race and condition of man, — shall 



188 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

meet here on some future occasion to carry out 
the idea of Col. Duncan K. McRea, of North 
CaroUna, who led the Fifth North Carolina Regi- 
ment at Williamsburg, and who was defeated by 
General Winfield S. Hancock. Gettysburg would 
then become indeed the Mecca of American Re- 
conciliation. 

A few days ago, anxious once more to visit the 
lovely valley in which I stood on the 19 th of 
November, 1863, and heard Edward Everett pro- 
nounce the unrivaled oration from which I have 
copied, followed by Abraham Lincoln, in that 
memorable utterance which reads like a poem and 
prayer rather than the deliverance of a great 
statesman, I took the cars and found myself in 
Gettysburg, after a restful ride in the silent and 
odorous twilight only occasionally found in our 
country in midsummer. Art, opulence and grati- 
tude, have come to reinforce nature in the great 
work of the decoration of the massive sepulchre, 
keeping fresh and green the holy memories of the 
martyred dead. To Governor Andrew G. Curtin 
the credit must be awarded, of providing for the 
proper interment of our fallen heroes. He en- 
trusted the plan to David Willis, of Gettysburg. 
Acting under the instruction of the Governor, this 
accomplished gentleman purchased a lot of some 
seventeen acres on Cemetery Hill, joining the 
village Cemetery on the North and West, where 
the centre of the Union line rested, and where 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 189 

the guns of Steinwelir and the men of the 
Eleventh Corps fought. The eighteen States, 
whose troops gained the battle, joined in this en- 
terprise. The title to the ground was vested in 
the State of Pennsylvania, in trust for all the 
States having dead buried there, and a corporate 
body was created consisting of one from each 
State, to serve without pay, to whom the care of 
the Cemetery was confided, the expense to be 
borne in proportion to the representation in Con- 
gress. 

The design for a monument by J. J. Batterson, 
of Hartford, Conn., was adopted by the commis- 
sioners, after the examination of a large number 
submitted. This monument is very impressive; 
and in this particular season of the year, amid 
the richness of nature, the fields shaven of the 
harvest just gathered, the trees and foliage yet 
untouched by the coming autumn, the sweet peace 
of the valley, the comfort of the surrounding 
farms, the prosperity and safety of Gettysburg 
itself, with all its interesting lessons, make the 
cemetery and the monument the most interesting 
objects of the vicinage. 

The whole rendering of the design of the monu- 
ment is intended to be purely historical, telling 
its own story, with such simplicity as to be readily 
comprehended. The superstructure is sixty feet 
high, and consists of a massive pedestal twenty- 
five feet square at the base, crowned with a co- 



190 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

lossal statue representing the genius of liberty. 
Standing upon a three-quarter globe, she raises 
with her right hand the victor's wreath of laurel, 
while at the left she gathers up the folds of our 
national flag, under which the victory was won. 
Projecting from the angles of the pedestal are 
four buttresses, supporting an equal number of 
allegorical statues, representing respectively war, 
history, peace, and plenty. War is personified 
by a statue of the American soldier, who, resting 
from the conflict, relates . to history the story of 
the battle which the monument commemorates. 
History, in listening attitude, records with stylus 
and tablet the achievements of the field, and the 
names of the honored dead. Peace is symbolized 
by a statue of the American mechanic, character- 
ized by appropriate accessories. Plenty is repre- 
sented by a female figure, with a sheaf of wheat 
and the fruits of the earth, typifying peace and 
abundance as the soldier's crowning triumph. 
The panels of the main die between the statues 
are to have inscribed upon them such inscriptions 
as may hereafter be determined. The main die 
of the pedestal is octagonal in form, paneled upon 
each face. The cornice and plinth above are also 
octagonal, and are heavily moulded. Upon this 
plinth rests an octagonal moulded base bearing 
upon its face, in high relief, the national arms. 
The upper die and cap are circular in form, the 
die being encircled by stars equal in number with 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 19 1 

the states whose sons contributed their lives as the 
price of the victory won at Gettysburg." 

Tlie Soldiers* National Cemetery, now in charge 
of the oflficials of the Government of the United 
States, near Gettysburg, is the most perfect modern 
mausoleum I ever saw. The ground was originally 
purchased at a cost of $197,000 by the State of 
Pennsylvania, and to-day, in admirable condition, 
is the most interesting object in Pennsylvania 
after Independence Hall, Philadelphia. The 
statue of Gen. John F. Reynolds is a striking 
work of art, like the central monument itself, 
with the four figures of ^' War," *' History," 
" Peace," and '' Plenty," executed by Randolph 
Rogers, at Rome, at the cost of §30,000. The 
whole shaft is crowned with a colossal symbol of 
victory ; — a fine combination, surrounded as it is 
on the plateau where it stands by the graves 
of known and unknown Union soldiers, and over- 
looking a landscape of unrivaled loveliness. 

All the graves of the martyred dead are divided, 
by States, each sad contribution marked with the 
name and age of the dead warrior ; in addition 
to these are nine hundred " unknown." Of those 
known there are from Maine, 104 ; Michigan, 171 ; 
New York, 867; Pennsylvania, 634; Massachusetts, 
150 ; Ohio, 131 ; Indiana, 80 ; Maryland, 22; Min- 
nesota, 52 ; Kentucky, 22 ; Wisconsin, 78 ; New 
Jersey, 78 ; Vermont, 61 ; New Hampshire, 49 ; 
Rhode Island, 12; Delaware, 15; West Virginia, 



192 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

11; Illinois, 6, the graves of the regular soldiers, 
138. There are few or no Southern graves left, 
all having been taken home by an organization, of 
which Mrs. Gen. Robert E. Lee, of Virginia, was 
President. 

The work of laying out the grounds, and suita- 
bly adorning them, was performed by that emi- 
nent landscape gardener, the late William Saun- 
ders. It is unnecessary to say that his commis- 
sion was executed with his best taste. Then a 
contract was entered into with F. W. Biesecker, 
to disinter the dead and to re-inter their remains 
in their last resting-place. The work began on 
the 27th of October, 1863, and was completed on 
the 18th cf March following. The whole number 
buried was 3512. The entire re-interment was 
effected by Samuel Weaver, who executed his 
trust with great care. Hundreds had been un- 
buried and translated to their own homes in the 
North, West and South. Many of the bodies in 
unmarked graves were identified in various ways. 
Sometimes by letters, by papers, receipts, certifi- 
cates, diaries, memorandum books, photographs, 
marks on the clothing, belts or cartridge boxes, by 
which means the names of many supposed to be 
forgotten soldiers were rescued. Money and other 
valuables, were found, which, when the residences 
of the friends were known, were sent to them. 
Words would fail to describe the grateful relief 
this work has brought to many a household ! A 



, WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 193 

father, a brother, or son that had been lost or 
killed, supposed to be 'forgotten, suddenly in the 
progress of the search his remains were found, 
deposited in a coffin with care and buried on the 
battle-field where he fell, the Soldiers' National 
Cemetery. 

In another part of this volume are copious ex- 
tracts from Mr. Everett's masterly oration, and I 
now add, in reference to the monument, that it 
was formally dedicated the 1st of July, 1869, when 
General Meade, himself, made an address. Gover- 
nor 0. P. Morton, of Indiana, an oration, and Bay- 
ard Taylor contributed an ode. These three men, 
the model soldier, the accomplished statesman, and 
the peerless poet, all sleep their last sleep. Gene- 
ral Meade died in Philadelphia on the 6th of No- 
vember, 1872; Senator Morton died on the 1st 
of November, 1877; Bayard Taylor on the 19th 
of December, 1878. This triumvirate of buried 
genius and trusted patriotism were called from 
among those by whom they were so loved and dis- 
tinguished when all too young. Meade was fifty- 
six, Morton fifty-four, and Bayard Taylor fifty- 
three ; and yet their lives were full of noble deeds. 
As we remember the consecrated, dead let us not 
forget those who did not fall in battle, but lived 
long enough to show their more unselfish devo- 
tion to their country. Bayard Taylor survived 
to pronounce that exquisite ode on the 4th of 
July, 1876, at the Centennial, in Independence 
13 



194 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Square, but nothing that ever fell from his pen or 
was glorified by the noble music of his tongue, 
ever surpassed his requiem at the dedication of 
the monument at Gettysburg, on the 1st of July, 

1869. 

" This they have done for us who slumber here, 
Awake, alive, though now so dumbly sleeping ; 

Spreading the board, but tasting not its cheer, '* 
Sowing but never reaping ; — 
Building, but never sitting in the shade 
Of the strong mansion they have made ; — 
Speaking their words of life with mighty tongue, 
But hearing not the echo million-voiced. 
Of Brothers who rejoiced, 
From all our river-vales and mountains flung I 
So take them, heroes of the songful past ! 
Open your ranks, let every shining troop 
Its phantom banners droop, 
To hail earth's noblest martyrs, and her last I 
Take them, O God ! our brave. 
The glad fnlfillers of Thy dread decree ; 
Who grasped the sword for peace, and smote to !?ave. 
And, dying here for freedom, died for Thee !" 

On Tuesday, July 12, 18S0, 1 traced other parts 
of the conflict of the three early July days, and 
was pointed out the house to which the brave 
General John F. Reynolds was carried after he 
was mortally wounded on the first of July. All 
along the way were small tablets with the names 
of some of the fallen, while the ground fought 
over by Majob General Wylie S. Crawford and his 
corps, where General Barksdale was killed, and 
Sickles wounded, has since been purchased by 
General Crawford, including the granite quarry 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 195 

known as "The Devil's Glen/' a mysterious mass 
of colossal boulders that seem to have been 
hurled in some terrible long gone convulsion of 
nature, as if by the angry gods in battle with 
Olympian Jove, a massive cluster of unsolved gi- 
gantic masonry, more traditional than the ghastly 
temple of the Druids of Stonehenge, England. 

What a study is Emmetsburg road, which divi- 
ded that part of the field directly in front of the 
stone wall behind which were grouped the columns 
and cannons of the waiting Union soldiers, on the 
historic 3d of Julv 1 I stood in the road, and in 
memory saw it all ! The charging Confederates 
advancing with silent and solid step, line after 
line, flinging themselves across the barrier from 
which they were hurled in masses of dead and dying 
by the Union batteries. I saw Hancock and his 
staff riding in proud and dazzling platoon between 
these terrible adversaries, and as I brought back 
in mind that unequaled conflict, I forgot the beau- 
tiful country around me, and only remembered my 
young friend. Col. William McMichael's magnifi- 
cently spoken photograph of that dreadful and 
decisive afternoon. He spoke on the evening 
of the 20th of December, 1870, just after Koth- 
ermel's great picture of the Battle of Gettysburg 
had been unveiled at the Academy of Music, in 
the city of Philadelphia, and of the thousands of 
men and women who listened to this splendid ap- 
peal, I could have wished that they had been pre- 



196 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

sent to hear it read in the Emmetsburg road when 
I visited Gettysburg on the 24th of July, 1880. 

It is 12 o'clock, July 3d, and to-morrow will be the anniversary of our 
independence. What tidings of joy or of sorrow shall its bells proclaim 
to the people. Gird your loins, ye yeomen of our legions, for it is honor 
and liberty, and a nation for which you are contending ! Twelve 
o'clock, and the heart of nature seems almost to cease its beating in the 
intensity of dread expectation, while the effulgent sun, looking down at 
high meridian, seems as of old to stand^ still in its course, as though 
shrinking appalled from the fearful slaughter it shall witness. The 
pause of carnage, the brink of fate, for as the great orb bends slowly to- 
ward the western horizon and marks the single hour upon the dial, a 
signal gun breaks the solemn stillness. 

And then from the line of the enemy, all along those hills, where his 
masses lie waiting, there bursts forth a tempest of flame and smoke 
and terrific cannonading, such as this continent never before witnessed ; 
nor seems to slacken its thundering death hail, until, from the sulphur- 
ous canopy, a part of the rebel front is seen advancing. Now for the 
tug of war ! Now for the death-grip of the battle ! For yonder come 
Pickett's men, who swear by the Lone Star they never have been beaten, 
and never will be, and on their either flank warriors of a score of fights. 

Eighteen thousand tested veterans, wrought into a Titanic war bolt — 
shaft of adamant, edges of steel — hurled forth to crush our centre, with 
ponderous onslaught. As they start, down fides Hancock along our 
line, superb that day in the beauty of his valor. " Here they come I " 
he cries out cheerily. '' Here they come, in three lines of battle I 
Steady, men, steady ! " " All right. General ! we are ready ! We hold 
this line, or die on it ! " But now, as they develop in the fields and move 
forward, our artillery rains destruction. It rakes them with shot, it 
rends them with shell, until on right and left they falter and stagger. 
Their flanks are crumbling, but their centre keeps firm. Oh ! stay them, 
Pickett. Your men of iron, they seem too brave to kill ! But on they 
come, and on, and on, till we see their faces and hear their yells. These 
are not men ; they are furies, maddened with treason, frenzied with 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 197 

hate. Xow, fire ! comrades, fire ! Up and at them ! Fight, men, fight 
for your wives and your children, and your homes. They sweep on us 
like demons — are at the guns, are on the wall I hand to hand, steel to 
steel, knife to knife — valor of patriots, rage of devils. Now, Gushing, 
give them your canister ! Now, Woodruff, tear them with your grape ! 
Hall to the rescue ! 72d down on them like tigers ! Flank them, 
Stannard ! Crush them, Gibbon ! Mash them, Webb ! They reel, 
they waver, their colors are going ! They break, they break ! They 
retreat, they retreat I The charge is repulsed, the battle is won. All 
honor to our heroes who survive ; all reverence for those who have 
fallen ; all praise to their gallant leader, and all thanks unto God who 
gave us the victory ! " 

DR. DRAPER, THE GREAT HISTORIAN, SHOWS HOW 
GETTYSBURG SAVED THE CONTINENT TO FREEDOM. 

Civil War in America — Draper, Vol. Hi., p. 147. 

The cannonade lulled. A thrill of generous admiration ran down 
the national line as the Confederate columns of attack, at 3 p. m., with 
a front more than a mile in extent, emerged from the woods on Semi- 
nary Ridge, and descended their slope of the valley. They were pre- 
ceded by a line of skirmishers of double or triple the usual strength ; 
next a line of battle for the charge ; then another, equally strong, in 
reserve. They had additional lines, or wings, to prevent the main 
force being flanked. On the right, as they marched, was Pickett's 
division; on the left, two or three hundred yards in the rear, was Heth's, 
commanded by Pettigrew. In strength they were about 18,000 men. 
In Pickett's charge, Kemper led the right, Garnett the left, with Armis- 
tead in support. The distance to be passed was more than half a mile, 
and the ground sloping up to the National position. 

In a few moments the question was to he settled whether Slavery or Free- 
dom should he master of this continent. 

" Why don't the guns support them ?" was anxiously asked on the 
Confederate side, and with intense curiosity on the National. " I had 
intended it," subsequently said Lee, " but the protracted cannonade had 



198 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

nearly exhausted the ammunition. This fact was unknown to me when 
the assault took place." 

Not only was Lee not informed of the exhaustion of his ammu- 
nition — he did not know of Ewell's dislodgement from the foot of Gulp's 
Hill. 

Unprotected, but unflinching, Pickett's column came over the valley, 
slippery with the last night's rain. They were veteran Virginians, and 
moved silently, without those yells of defiance that characterize the 
troops from the Gulf. Almost a hundred guns, from Cemetery Hill to 
the Round Tops, quiveringly awaited the word. It was given, and they 
tore vast gaps in the advancing ranks. Fredericksburg had already 
shown what an awful thing it is to pass through the hail of rifled mus- 
ketry and the cannonade of modern artillery. 

The charge was first directed toward Doubleday's lines, but the fire 
from Eound Top made the assaulting array bend towards its left, and 
brought the attack more on Hancock's position. Two regiments of 
Stannard's brigade, ^ho were in a grove in front of Hancock's left, at 
an angle with the main line, gave to the charging force an appalling 
flanking fire, while it was subjected to the artillery in front. This 
caused it to bear still more to the left, and brought the weight of the 
attack upon Webb. When the column had come within 300 yards it 
received the fire of the divisions of Hays and Gibbons. That fire it re- 
turned. In front of Hays it broke, and he took 15 colors and 2,000 
prisoners. The right of that portion of the enemy before Gibbons was 
at the same time checked. It doubled in towards its left, thus reinforc- 
ing the centre and throwing the point of contact in full force on Webb's 
brigade. The Virginians were now in the very focus of the fire. 

Webb's brigade was posted in two lines, two of its regiments being be- 
hind a stone wall, and breast-work, the third behind the crest, sixty 
paces in the rear, so disposed as to be able to fire over those in front. 
As the smoke enveloped the attacking mass, the last glimpses that were 
caught showed that it was reeling and breaking into fragments ; but, 
though its organization was lost, the Virginians individually rushed for- 
ward. Coming out of the cloud that enclosed them, headed by Armistead, 
they touched at last the stone wall. The two regiments holding the 




Phillips House on Fire. 




Fredericksburg on the Morning of the 12th. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 201 

wall fell back to the regiment in the rear; 'then they were re- 
formed by the personal efforts of Webb and his officers. Encouraged 
by this apparent retreat, the Virginians planted their battle-flags on the 
wall, and pushed over the breast-works. A desperate hand to hand con- 
flict now ensued : the clothes of the men were actually burned by the pow- 
der of the exploding cartridges ; the national cannoneers were clubbed 
and bayoneted at their guns. Reinforcements were coming to Webb from 
all sides. Men and officers were all fighting together. The assailants 
were literally crushed. Of fifteen field officers, but one was unhurt ; of 
the three brigade commanders, Garnett was killed, Armistead mortally 
wounded and left on the field, and Kemper carried away to die. Com- 
panies and regiments threw down their arms, rushing forward to be 
taken prisoners out of the horrible fire. Gibbons' division took 12 
colors and 2500 prisoners. The wreck of the mass fled back toward 
Seminary Ridge, diminished every instant by the remorseless caimonade 
that was still directed upon it. 

Such was the fate of the grand assault by the right Confederate 
column. That on their left, under Pettigrew, was by no means so 
resolutely made. Pickett's men were, for the most part, veteran Vir- 
ginians; Pettigrew' s, new recruits. Almost as soon as the latter 
advanced they began to waver, but when they came toward the enfila- 
ding fire of the National guns they hesitated. Perceiving that their 
enemy was moving round them strong flanking bodies, they were panic- 
stricken ; their lines dissolved, they were huddled into knots. They 
fled in confusion to the rear, with the loss of hundreds taken prisoners. 
All but one of their field officers had been killed or wounded ; they fell 
under command of a major. Pettigrew's brigade had mustered 2800 
strong on the morning of the 1st of July ; at roll-call on the 4th only 
835 answered to their na,mes. 

The battle of Gettysburg was now substantially over. Nevertheless 
Wilcox, who had not advanced in support of Pickett, as had been origi- 
nally intended, made a demonstration of moving forward, as if to renew 
the assault, but returned in confusion. 

The National loss at Gettysburg was 23,210, of whom 2834 were 
killed, 13,733 wounded, 6643 missing. The Confederate loss reached 



202 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

the awful aggregate of 36,000, of whom 5000 were killed, 23,000 wounded. 
** All this has been my fault," said Lee to Wilcox ; /' it is I who have lost 
this battle." The dream of the passage of the Susquehanna was at an 
end ; there was nothing now for the Confederates but a retreat to the 
Bappahannock. Freedom was master on the continent. 

WATERLOO AND GETTYSBURG. 

The Battle of Waterloo was fought nin^ miles 
south-east of the City of Brussels, in the province 
of Belgium, June 18, 1815, between the allied army 
commanded by the Duke of Wellington and the 
French army under Napoleon ; and by the defeat 
of the French, the whole destiny of Europe was 
changed. France reverted to the Bourbons under 
Louis XVIII, and the other governments set up, or 
changed, or held in terror, the people were at once 
restored to their old rulers, and relieved from fear 
and surveillance. Napoleon himself was seized 
and sent to die on the rocks of St. Helena, his pro- 
perty confiscated, his favorite Generals shot, and 
his family banished. Had the battle of Gettysburg 
been decided against the Union cause, the change 
would have been as complete and thorough. With 
the occupation of Philadelphia and Washington 
City, the Capitol of the National Government 
would have become the Confederate Capitol, Penn- 
sylvania a Confederate State ; Baltimore a Con- 
federate sea-port ; New York a Confederate metro- 
polis ; slavery would have been certainly restored, 
the national debt repudiated and the Confederate 
Constitution adopted. The recognition of the Con- 



WTNFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 203 

federacy by all the foreign powers would iiave been 
followed by the downfall of free institutions all 
over the world. This is no fancy sketch. There 
is not a statesman, North or South, that has 
not either hoped or feared such a catastrophe to the 
American Union, and that has not spoken or writ- 
ten this hope or fear, as I have in this volume. 
That the rescue of the American Union at Gettys- 
burg has proved a benefaction to both sections ; 
to the old masters and to the new freedmen ; to 
the property of the South, the power of the West, 
the commerce of New York, and the manufactures 
of Pennsylvania ; to all those who fought to save, 
and to all those who fought to slay the Republic, 
are facts as well established. Do we ever think 
how near we came to lose these greatest of human 
blessings? Had Hancock fallen on the 3d as Rey- 
nolds fell on the 1st of July, 18G3, that fate 
might have been ours. There were brave men 
left; there were Generals just as experienced ; 
there were courage, and self-sacrifice, and patriot- 
ism. That is freely admitted. But the fear 
was universal, and the admission was univer- 
sal, that these mighty elements could not be 
organized again, and in reviving the fact I only 
repeat the apprehensions of tens of thousands of 
men common as the air in 1863. As inevitably 
as the fate of Napoleon changed the map of 
Europe sixty-five years ago, equally sure would 
have been the translation of liberty to despotism 



204 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

had the Confederates carried Gettysburg in 1863. 
But how wonderful are the ways of Providence ! 
The victories of the flag of the Union on that 
field have been made still more victorious by the 
triumphant logic of the succeeding peace. 

Both houses of the American Congress unani- 
mously adopted a joint resolution, on the 21st of 
April, 1866 (both houses being Republican by 
large majorities), which joint resolution reads as 
follows : — 

*'The gratitude of the American people and the thanks of their repre- 
aentatives in Congress are hereby tendered to Major General VTinfield 
S. Hancock for his gallant, meritorious and conspicuous share in that 
great and decisive victory, Gettysburg." 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 205 



CHAPTER YI. 

IN THE CAMPAIGN WITH GRANT. 

^N the 18th of March, 1864, the General, while 
actively engaged in recruiting, writes to his 
father from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: ^*I have 
just received an order from the Secretary of War, 
to report without delay to him for instructions, 
prior to rejoining my command in the field. I 
have but time to notify you of the fact." 

Rarely has such an experience occurred in the 
life of any soldier : General Hancock had already 
filled out a continuous service sufficient to make 
any other man famous. His record in the Mexi- 
can war, his service in the West and on the Paci- 
fic coast, his unparalleled daring in the decisive 
Battle of Gettysburg, would seem to have earned 
for him, not alone the gratitude of his country, 
but that rest and retirement which belong to the 
faithful soldier. 

I was in Washington during the year of 1864, 
and can certify to the fact that notwithstanding 
the great Battle of Gettysbiirg and its transcen- 



206 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

dent result, the struggle for the republic was not 
yet over. Politics came in to prolong the conflict; 
and as the experience of all the nations has shown, 
every civil war is delayed by ambitious men. 
President Lincoln, in consideration of his distin- 
guished services, appointed General Grant Lieu- 
tenant General of the Armies of the United States, 
on the 1st of March, 1864, and then began that 
tremendous movement which, a little more than a 
year after, culminated in the collapse of the Con- 
federacy. On the 8th of March General Grant 
arrived in Washington to take possession of the 
Army of the Potomac, and I was present at Wil- 
lard's Hotel when General Hancock came to pay 
his respects to his new leader. 

The movements for the coming Presidential 
election were earnest and active, made the more 
so because Mr. Lincoln had quite an opposition in 
his own party. It will be recollected that Hon. 
Winter Davis, of Maryland, Hon. Benj. F. Wade, 
of Ohio, and Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Chase, 
with many more, were dissatisfied with the moder- 
ate course of the President. Meeting General 
Hancock frequently at my rooms, I can certify to 
the gentle manner in which he bore himself, and 
his severe avoidance of all participation in the po- 
litical intrigues of the hour. 

There were some remarkable events at that 
time. On Wednesday evening, the 8th of April, 
George Thompson, the celebrated English Aboli- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 207' 

tionist, made a speech in favor of American Eman- 
cipation, and during his great effort, he noticed a 
resolution which had been offered in the House, 
charging him with having said, in England, that 
the dissolution of the American Union was the 
object to be kept steadily in view. The venerable 
English Abolitionist, Mr. Thompson, not only de- 
nied it, but after he had done so a note was sent 
to him signed by Mr. Morris, who had offered the 
resolution, stating that the authority upon which 
he had offered it was a letter, which he ascertained 
afterwards had been forged. Among those who 
heard this great effort were the venerable Thadde- 
us Stevens, Joseph Holt of Kentucky, and Rever- 
dy Johnson, of Maryland, the latter of whom, the 
very day before, had made that unanswerable 
speech in favor of the Union, in the Senate of the 
United States, which deserved to be placed among 
the best utterances of a significant era, when hun- 
dreds of thousands of men of all parties clustered 
around the flag of the Union. Never before did I 
hear a more magnificent vindication of the princi- 
ple of true liberty. I wrote in " Occasional " as 
follows: "God bless Reverdy Johnson for these 
great words. What Democrat, what old line 
Whig, what American citizen will not take them 
to his heart, and store them like priceless jewels 
in the casket of his memory !" 

At the same time, the Democrats of the House 
of Representatives in caucus assembled, on motion 



208 LIFE AND PUBLIC CABEEB OF 

of Hon. S. S. Cox, of New York^ openly de- 
nounced the attempt of Hon. A. A. Long, the 
Democratic representative from the Cincinnati 
district, to place them in opposition to the Union. 

In the November following, General George 
B. McClellan was defeated as the Democratic 
candidate for President by Abraham Lincoln. The 
curious anomaly was presented, while the platform 
upon which he stood declared for peace with the 
Confederates, the General declared for war. 

During the summer of 1864, Washington City 
itself was threatened, and would have been cap- 
tured but for the opportune arrival of General 
Wright's Sixth Corps. 

A curious incident happened just at this time. 
When Early determined to advance with his corps 
of 8000 infantry and 24 pieces of artillery upon 
the city of Washington, Breckinridge and Ransom 
having command of the cavalry, and Early, him- 
self, at the head of about 12,000 men, they reached 
Staunton on the 27th of June, of that year, and 
got before Washington early in July, and would 
undoubtedly have made a successful assault upon 
the Capital but for the arrival of Wright's Sixth 
Corps. Sharing in the general solicitude I was 
standing at the door of my residence on Capitol 
Hill when Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward drove up, 
the President remarking in a jocular way that if 
I would walk down to Four-and-a-half Street, I 
should see the advance of the great column going 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 209 

out to meet the Confederates, then assembled near 
the residence of Francis P. Blair at Silver Spring, 
a few miles from the city. I did so, and witnessed 
the arrival of that remarkable reinforcement, the 
enthusiasm of the men, the joy of the officers, and 
the great relief of the population of Washington 
city Mr. Lincoln was cool and composed, and Mr. 
Seward unusually philosophical and calm. Gen. 
Early claims to have effected some important re- 
sults by this diversion upon the National Capital, 
and in a paper written by A. L. Long, Chief of 
Artillery, Second Corps, Army Northern Virginia, 
I find that while Early was very much criticised 
for not having captured Washington City in July 
of 1864, he seemed quite compensated for the great 
fright he had occasioned the President and his 
Cabinet, and the people. I can certify that he was 
right in this claim ; and when I met Mr. Breckin- 
ridge in Paris, in 1867, he laughingly assured me 
that if he had got into the Capital, he would have 
come direct to my quarters and breakfasted with 
me as in the days when we were good Democrats 
together. I replied that it would have been the 
first time I could not say that he would have 
been very welcome under my roof-tree. 

On the previous 3d of May, General Grant and 
the army marched from Culpepper Court-house, 
Ya., General Hancock leading the advance. This 
post of honor had been awarded to him by General 
Grant, not only because of his splendid conduct at 
14 



210 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Gettysburg and in the preceding conflicts under 
Hooker, but because Grant had special confidence 
in Hancock's good sense, experience and courage. 
His first battle under Grant took place in the Wil- 
derness on the 5th of May of that year. 

With the ranks of the Second Corps well re- 
cruited during his absence in the North and his 
command increased by the addition of the gallant 
old Third, making in all upwards of 30,000 men, 
Hancock became a most conspicuous figure in 
the wonderful battles of the Wilderness. Those 
bloody engagements commenced on the second an- 
niversary of the day at Williamsburg, where he 
won the first renown. Hancock displayed his old 
tactics. He made a countercharge at the crisis of 
the fight, threw himself among his troops, sword 
in hand, and exposed himself like a private 
soldier. 

On the 10th he made an assault on the enemy's 
line at Alsop's House, near Spottsylvania. On the 
12th, in immediate command of his old Second 
Corps, he accomplished a splendid feat. At the 
head of his corps he made the assault at daylight, 
favored by a dense fog. The position was carried 
with a rush. Five thousand prisoners, twenty 
pieces of artillery, thirty stands of colors and 
several thousand muskets, were the fruits of the 
victory. It was after this fine demonstration that 
Hancock telegraphed to Lieutenant General Grant : 
"I have captured from thirty to forty guns. I 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 211 

have finished up Johnson, and am now going into 
Early." 

On the 18 th, General Hancock again assaulted 
the enemy near Spottsylvania. On the 19 th he 
repelled an attack in force by E well's corps, Ewell 
losing several hundred men, and being driven by 
Hancock across the Ny River in great disorder. 

On the 23d and 24th of May, he engaged the 
enemy on the North Anna ; and fought again at 
Tolopotomy on the 29 th, 30 th and 31st, in a bloody 
engagement. At Coal Harbor, on June 3d, he was 
again engaged ; and took an important part in the 
operations before the enemy's works at that place, 
up to June 13th. The army then crossed the 
James on the 15th and 17th of June, and it was 
actively engaged in the assaults on the enemy's 
works before Petersburg. 

It is impossible to give full details of these suc- 
cessive engagements, or to describe the privations 
of his men during their long marches, their con- 
stant fighting, the perils of the bivouac, the hor- 
rors of the hospitals, the dangers of the picket 
lines, their incessant deeds of daring, and ceaseless 
personal dangers. 

On the evening of the 17th of June, 1862, 
Hancock's iron constitution broke down from the 
effects of his Gettysburg wound, and he was 
compelled to turn over the command of his corps, 
though he did not leave the field, sufiering intense 
pain, forced to occupy an ambulance during that 



212 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

long march, yet he fearlessly mounted his horse 
when his troops came in contact with the enemy. 
His wound was in the upper part of the thigh ; it 
had fractured and splintered the upper part of the 
femur, and once it was thought his life could not 
be saved. But his splendid constitution pulled 
him through, and his entire recovery would have 
been ensured had he not been impatient to go into 
the battle again, the penalty for which was a 
forced brief retirement from his command. 

On the 27th of June, however, he again partici- 
pated in the operations before Petersburg, until 
July 26th, 1864, when he crossed to the north side 
of the James River with his corps and a division of 
cavalry, and assaulted the enemy's line at Deep 
Bottom, capturing the outer works, two hundred 
prisoners, several stands of colors a^nd four pieces 
of artillery. 

On the next 12th of August, he was made 
Brigadier General in the regular army, and on the 
same day, while at the head of his old Second Corps, 
the tenth corps and a division of cavalry, he 
assaulted the enemy's line, carried part of the 
enemy's works, captured three hundred prisoners, 
three stands of colors, and four howitzers. On the 
25th of August, he fought the battle of Ream's 
Station, with two divisions of his own corps and a 
division of cavalry against greatly superior forces. 
Here another horse was shot under him. On the 
2 2d of October, with the same forces^ he was en- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 213 

gaged at Boynton Road, inflicting a heavy loss in 
killed and wounded on the enemy, driving them 
from the field and capturing one thousand prisoners 
and two stands of colors. 

GRAPHIC PICTURE OF THE BATTLES OF THE WILDER- 
NESS. 
{^From Draper's Civil War, Vol. III. p. 375.] 

On the morning of the 7th reconnoissances showed that the Confede- 
rates had fallen behind their intrenched lines, with pickets to the front, 
covering a part of the battle-field. From this Grant inferred that Lee 
was satisfied of his inability to maintain the contest in the open field, 
and that he would wait an attack behind his works. Grant therefore 
determined to put his whole force between Lee and Richmond, and 
gave orders for a movement by Lee's right flank. On the night of the 
7th the march for Spottsylvania Court-house commenced. Warren 
and Hancock marched by the Brock Road ; Sedgwick and Burnside, with 
the trains, by a detour eastward by Chancellors ville, and then southward. 
Lee discovered the movement, and, it so happened, reached Spottsyl- 
vania first. Anderson, who commanded Longstreet's corps, after the 
disabling of that officer, had received orders to march next morning, 
but was driven by the flames out of the burning woods, and kept on all 
night, moving by a road parallel to that on which Warren was march- 
ing to Spottsylvania. Not meeting with the obstructions that Warren 
encountered, he reached Spottsylvania first. Now, learning of Warren's 
approach, he drew up his men across the road on which Warren was 
coming. The country was undulating, and dotted here and there with 
thick groves of pine for the distance of a mile from the point where 
the wilderness terminates. 

As Grant's rear-guard was firing its last gun in the Wilderness, its 
advance had thus reached Lee's troops three miles in front of Spottsyl- 
vania. 

It was not until four hours after the expected time that Warren's 
column emerged into the open clearing, and saw the court-house on its 



214 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

wooded ridge. He had been delayed by barricades ; at once lie en- 
deavored to force his way, and succeeded for the time, after a desperate 
struggle, in driving back the Confederates, with severe loss on both 
sides. The First Michigan, 200 strong, came out of the conflict with 
only twenty-three men. The day was intensely hot, and many suflfered 

from sun-stroke. 

On the 9th, Sheridan, with his cavalry, started on a movement 

agains'^ Lee's lines of communication with Richmond. 

The 9th, 10th and 11th were spent in manoeuvring and fighting. The 
sharp-shooters up in the trees were busy picking off oflicers. It was on 
the first of these days that Sedgwick, commanding the Sixth Corps, 
was killed. He was superintending the placing of a battery where the 
men were exposed to a pretty sharp fixe. '' Pooh !" said he, " they 
could not hit an elephant at that distance." At that moment he was 
struck by a rifle-shot in the face, and instantly fell dead. The com- 
mand of the Sixth Corps devolved upon Wright. 

On Tuesday morning, the 10th, Grant occupied substantially the 
same position as on the previous day. His line stretched about six miles 
on the north bank of the Po, in the form of a crescent, the wings 
being thrown forward. The Second Corps, across the Potomac, held 
a line on the right nearly parallel to the road from Shady Grove 
Church to the Court-house ; the Fifth held the centre, on the east 
side of the Po; the Sixth held the left, facing toward the Court- 
house ; farther on the left was the Ninth ; in front was a dense forest. 
Lee held Spottsylvania and the region north of the Court-house. His 
left rested on Glady Run, bending nortliAvard, and sheltered by 
strong works made previously in anticipation ; his right curved in a 
similar direction, and rested on the Ny River ; his centre, thrown forward 
a little from the right and left centres, was posted on commanding 
ground. His position was well supported by breast-works ; along the 
centre was the forest and underbrush lining a marsh partially drained 
by the Run. The conflict opened in the morning by a terrific fire of 
artillery, which lasted all the forenoon. An attack was then made by 
the Fifth Corps, and by Gibbon's and Birney's divisions of the Second, 
on Lee's centre. Grant's losses were very severe in the repeated charges 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 215 

by wliicli the enemy was driven from his rifle-pits. In the meantime 
the enemy had attacked and turned Barlow's division of the Second 
Corps on the right, but it was finally extricated without great loss. 
Although the woods took fire and added to the difficulties, the withdrawal 
was eflected in good order, but many of the wounded had to be left be- 
hind to perish in the flames. 

So far the operations of the day had resulted in no substantial ad- 
vantage to the national arms. A weak point had, however, been dis- 
covered in front of the 6th Corps, and a column of twelve picked 
regiments, under Colonel Upton, was formed for the purpose of assault- 
ing it. So suddenly and well was the attack made, at 5 o'clock, that 
Upton, who led it himself, broke the Confederate line, captured several 
guns and nearly 1,000 prisoners. The works gained, he turned at once 
right and left along the intrenchments, driving back the troops holding 
them. It was, however, found impossible to support him efiectively, 
and he was compelled to fall back with the prisoners he had taken. 
Grant's losses during the day were supposed to exceed 10,000 ; Lee's 
were believed to be equally severe. At 8 o'clock on the following 
morning, Grant sent to the War Department the following dispatch : 

" We have now ended the sixth day of very hard fighting. The 
result to this time is much in our favor. Our losses have been heavy, 
as well as those of the enemy. I think the loss of the enemy must be 
greater. We have taken over 5,000 prisoners in battle, while he has 
taken from us but few except stragglers. I propose to fight it out on 
this line if it takes all summer.'' 

On Wednesday (11th) the position of the two armies remained nearly 
the same. There was some skirmishing, but toward noon it lulled 
away. Rain began to fall, for the first time since the army had moved, 
in the afternoon. It was determined that on the next morning an 
attack sJiould be directed toward Lee's right, where his lines made a 
salient. Soon after midnight, in the darkness and storm, Hancock's 
corps drew out from its intrenchments, and, passing in the rear of the 
6th, went into position 1200 yards in front of the works it was to storm. 

At the dawn of the 12th, covered by a dense fog, Hancock's columns 
emerged from the woods, and without firing a shot, marched in quick time 



216 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

against the enemy. When nearly half-way toward the hostile line, they 
gave a cheer, and, taking the double-quick, pushed forward to the abatis, 
tore it away, and got across the intrenchraents. They surrounded an 
entire division of the enemy, capturing three thousand prisoners, among 
them two generals. So complete was the surprise that the oflScers were 
taken at their breakfast, and Hancock sent a dispatch, in pencil to Grant: 
' I have captured from 30 to 40 guns. I finished up Johnston, and am 
now going into Early.' It was Johnston's division of EwelFs corps 
that had been struck. Hancock now pushed forward in the hope of 
cutting Lee's army in two. But he was checked by a fire from an 
anterior line of works half a mile beyond the line he had carried. To 
this Ewell retreated, Hill re-enforcing him from the right, Anderson 
from the left, and Hancock was forced back to the position he had first 
carried. Wright's corps was hurried to Hancock's help, and Burnside 
and Warren were directed to attack along their fronts. The battle now 
became general all along the line, Lee made five furious assaults in 
quick succession, with the intention of dislodging Hancock and Wright ; 
but, though his men succeeded in planting their flags, in some instances, 
in the very midst of the National troops, they were repulsed each time. 
Ultimately Hancock got ofi" twenty of the captured guns, and kept firm 
possession of the salient. But Lee held a line only a few paces beyond, 
so that his position was as secure as ever. 

'' The fighting of this day was as severe as any during the war. It 
is to be doubted if musketry firing was ever kept up so incessantly as it 
was by the contending troops near the captured salient. The whole 
forest, within range, was blighted by it. One tree, eighteen inches in 
diameter, was actually cut in two by the leaden bullets which struck it. 
The loss on each side was not less than ten thousand men. 

" From dawn to dusk, the roar of the guns was ceaseless ; a tempest of 
shell shrieked through the forest, and plowed the field. When night 
came, the angle of those works where the fire had been hottest, and from 
which the enemy had been finally driven, had a spectacle for whoever 
cared to look that would never have enticed his gaze again. Men, in 
hundreds, killed and wounded, together, were piled in hideous heaps ; 
some bodies, that had lain for hours under the concentric fire of the 




Ruins of Chancellorsville. 




r-,^.:.^.':>r^..r;''r,W'^ 



Defenses on Culp's Hill. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 219 

battle, being perforated with wounds. The writhing of the wounded, 
beneath the dead, moved these masses at times ; at times, a lifted arm, 
or a quivering limb, told of an agony not quenched by the Lethe of 
death around. Bitter fruit, this ; a dear price, it seemed, to pay for the 
capture of a salient angle of an enemy's intrenched work, even though 
that enemy's loss was terrible." 

" The Life of General Grant/' published by T. B. 
Peterson & Bros., of Philadelphia, in 1872, has a 
brilliant sketch of the grand campaign which began 
in May of 1864 and did not end until the Union 
Army had captured Eichmond, the capital of the 
Southern Confederacy. Major General Hancock, 
commanding the advance with his famous Second 
Corps, broke ground on the morning of the 3d, and 
on the 5th of May took the initiative on the left 
by grappling Longstreet near Wilderness Tavern. 
On Friday, General Grant's historian, referring to 
Hancock, says : '' This magnificent soldier, backed 
by his magnificent corps, had terrible work before 
him. Pressed by the forces of Longstreet, he 
struggled hard, fiercely and long to hold his own, 
was twice driven back to his breastworks, and once 
the enemy ventured to plant their colors within 
his field works. Such fighting as Hancock did 
that day had probably never been seen before." 

The first day, at Spottsylvania Court House, 
being Tuesday, Hancock having through Monday 
night swung his front around, early the next morn- 
ing he took position about one and a half miles in 
advance of his former position, driving the enemy 



220 LIFE AND PUBLIC CABEER OF 

before him and making a good use of his artillery 
and infantry fire. The second day, at Spottsylva- 
nia, Wednesday, the 11th, and Thursday, the 12th, 
were destined to witness the most complete tri- 
umphs that were yet vouchsafed to our arms on 
that line. Lieutenant General Grant had ordered 
General Hancock, in whose gallantry, heroism and 
ability he had unbounded confidence, to move 
during the night quietly towards the line of in- 
trenchment held by Ewell's Corps in his front. 
Slowly and surely his men crept forward, and the 
dawn of day found them close upon the sleeping 
and unsuspecting enemy. At the proper moment 
the order was given to charge, when, with a yell 
the devoted band of heroes sprang forward, and ere 
the enemy were aware of the proximity of their 
opponents, Hancock's men rushed over the intrench- 
ments, using the butt end of the muskets on the 
devoted heads of the Confederates. The result of 
this battle was, between thirty and forty pieces of 
artillery were taken, with their commander. Gene- 
ral E. Johnson. At nine o'clock the next morning, 
in addition to the brilliant night above mentioned, 
the whole line of Hancock's Corps advanced, and 
although the enemy contested every point with 
great determination, still Hancock advanced, and 
in face of such desperate resistance, that every 
foot of soil gained was a triumphant success. 

On the 14th of May General Grant sent dis- 
patches to the War Department stating that " the 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 221 

advance of Hancock yesterday developed that the 
enemy had fallen back four miles, where they re- 
mained in position." The day before, the 13th, 
General Meade addressed the Army of the Potomac, 
in which General Hancock had performed prodigies 
of valor, as follows : 

*' IIead-quaeters Army of the Potomac, May 13, 1864. 
** Soldiers : — The moment has arrived when your Commanding Gene- 
ral feels authorized to address you in terms of congratulation. For 
eight days and nights, almost without intermission, in rain and sunshine, 
you have been gallantly fighting a desperate foe in positions naturally 
strong and rendered doubly so by intrenchments. You have compelled 
him to abandon his fortifications on the Eapidan, to retire and attempt 
to stop your army progress, and now he has abandoned the last in- 
trenched position, so tenaciously held, sufiering a loss in all of eighteen 
guns, twenty-two colors, and eight thousand prisoners, including two 
general officers. Your heroic deeds and noble endurance of fatigue 
and privations will ever be memorable. Let us return thanks to God 
for His mercy thus shown us and ask earnestly for its continuation." 

Meanwhile, with General Meade at the head of 
the Army of the Potomac and Lieutenant General 
Grant in command of the whole army, his great 
mind taking in charge the whole campaign of bat- 
tle, extending from Virginia to the farthest South, 
General Hancock was pressing forward with his 
advance, making with General Burnside a heavy 
concei ved attack on the enemy's right "wing, on Fri- 
day, the loth of May, which covered Spottsylvania 
Court House on the north and covered also the road 
running through that town. The success of Gene- 
ral Hancock in driving the enemy from the two 



222 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

lines of breastworks and making valuable captures 
has already been noted. 

This was the great month of battle, beginning 
on the 3d of May, 1864, when the Rapidan was 
crossed without serious opposition, leaving Grant 
and Meade with their generals masters of the 
Peninsula, without having uncovered Washington 
for a single hour. Finally, on the night of the 12th 
of June, General Grant withdrew his forces from 
Lee's front at Cold Harbor and Gaines' Mill. 
General W. F. Smith, with the 18th Corps, 
marched to the White House, embarked on trans- 
ports, and went down to Pamunkey and York 
rivers, and up the James. The 6th and 9th Corps, 
under Wright and Burnside, crossed the Chickaho- 
miny at Jones' Bridge, while Hancock's 2d and 
Warren's 5th Corps crossed at Long Bridge, whence 
they marched to the James river, crossing at 
Powhatan Point. The great movement was car- 
ried out without a single failure, and without notice 
to the enemy, who woke up on the morning of the 
loth of June to find the army which menaced them 
the previous night had disappeared and was 
already beyond the hope of successful pursuit. 

In July of 1864 the enemy, finding it impossible 
to shake the last stronghold with which Gra \t had 
grappled the throat of the conflict at Richmond, 
resolved to try another plan, the invasion of Mary- 
land, thereby threatening Washington, trusting in 
this to induce Grant to withdraw his army from 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 223 

the James to the defence of the national capital ; 
but in vain. Breckinridge was defeated before the 
walls of Washington by a hasty retreat into Vir- 
ginia, leaving five hundred of his men killed and 
wounded under the guns of Fort Fisher. 

And now I turn to another life of Grant, written 
by that accomplished soldier and scholar, Capt. 
Henry Coppee, still connected with the great Uni- 
versity at Bethlehem, Pa , a graduate of West 
Point, a hero in the Mexican war and an instructor 
at the Military Academy until 1855. ITis military 
biography of General Grant leaves out the great 
drama of Gettysburg, but nevertheless contains 
several striking and manly tributes to Winfield S. 
Hancock, after the whole army had been organized 
under the new Lieut. General Grant, Hancock 
being placed at the head of his old 2d Corps by 
Gen. Meade, still the chief of the Army of the 
Potomac, preparatory to a great march upon Eich- 
mond. Coppee says of Hancock — "He was an 
officer of infantry, who had risen with great 
rapidity; and who, in bearing, personal appear- 
ance, splendid gallantry, and influence over his 
troops, fully deserves the epithet which he re- 
ceived at Williamsburg — ^Hancock the superb.'" 

Again speaking of Hancock in the Battle of the 
Wilderness, he says : 

" But the principal fighting, as was anticipated, is in front of Hancock. 
Attacking at 5 o'clock precisely , with the divisions under Birney and 
Getty, and with Wadsworth, also, on Hill's flank, he drives Heth 



224 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

and Wilcox, of IliU's corps, (on the 6tli of May, 1864) a mile and a half 
to the rear, and within a hundred and fifty yards of Lee's Head-quarters, 
He takes possession of their rifle pits, many prisoners, and five stands 
of colors. The skill and valor of Hancock, the firmness of Gibbons, and 
the distinguished gallantry of Colonel Carroll, commanding the 3d bri- 
gade of Gibbons' division, dashed Lee's hope of piercing our left, which, 
for a moment, it was feared he might do." 

The fight on the 6 th of May substantially ter- 
minated what has become famous in history as 
the Battle of the Wilderness, for on the next day, 
the 7th, Hancock's advance found Lee withdrawn 
from his immediate front, and pushing forward, 
discovered him in a new line, strongly intrenched, 
near Parker's Store, and connecting with his in- 
trenched line on the turnpike. 

On the 9 th of May, while Lieutenant General 
Grant was fighting forward, Meade leading the 
Army of the Potomac, and Hancock with his 
splendid 2d Corps driving ahead with all his un- 
paralleled gallantry, Abraham Lincoln issued from 
the Executive Mansion the following : 

Executive Mansion, Washington, May 9, 1864. 
To the Friends of Union and Liberty .—Enough is known of the army 
operations within the last five days to claim our special gratitude to God. 
While what remains undone demands our most sincere prayers to, and 
reliance upon, Him (without whom all human effort is vain) I recom- 
mend that all patriots, at tfteir homes, in their places of public worship 
and wherever they may be, unite in common thanksgiving and prayer 
to Almighty God. Abraham Lincoln. 

And three days after Professor Coppee writes of 
Hancock: "The morning of Thursday, the 12th 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 225 

of June, dawned, enveloped in an auspicious fog 
of great denseness. The orders were given in 
silence. The Second Corps (under Hancock) was 
formed in two lines. Barlow with the 1st Division 
in two lines, occupied the centre, and Birney, with 
the 3d Division, was on his right ; the 2d and 4th, 
under Gibbons and Mott, formed the second line. 
The point of attack was a salient angle of earth- 
works, held by Johnson's division, E well's corps. 
Silently and unseen, the corps moved upon the 
unsuspecting enemy. They passed over the rug- 
ged and quite exposed space, the enthusiasm grow- 
ing at every step, until, with a terrible charge, and 
a storm of cheers, they reached the enemy's works, 
scaled them in front and flank, surprising the cele- 
brated "Stonewall" Brigade of Johnson at their 
breakfast, surrounding them, and capturing almost 
the entire division, with its commander, Gen. Ed- 
ward Johnson ; two brigades of other troops, with 
their commander. Brigadier General George H. 
Stewart; and thirty guns. The number of prison- 
ers taken was between three and four thousand. 
It was the most decided success yet achieved during 
the campaign. When Hancock heard that these 
Generals were taken, he directed that thev should 
be brought to him. Offering his hand to Johnson, 
that officer was so affected as to shed tears, declar- 
ing that he would have preferred death to captiv- 
ity. He then extended his hand to Stewart, whom 
he had known before, saying: "How are you, 



223 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Stewart?" But the Confederate, with great haugh- 
tiness, rephed, ^'lain General Stewart, of the Con- 
federate Army; and, under present circumstances, 
I dechne to take your hand." Hancock's cool and 
dignified reply was: "And under any other cir- 
cumstances. General, T should not have offered it." 
It was after this magnificent feat of arms that Gen. 
Meade issued the order of the thirteenth of May, 
elsewhere printed. 

If I did not know of the historic heroism of our 
troops in that great conflict, I should regard this 
thrilling sketch of the service of General Hancock 
as the wild invention of a novel writer. But there 
were many other deeds of daring wrought by other 
men, and nothing but the fact that I am now de- 
scribing one character in an unparalleled drama, 
must be my excuse for confining the volume to 
Hancock's achievements. These, themselves, were, 
however, so peculiar as to call forth praise from all 
sides ; and if I had the room I could fill pages wdth 
the commendations of his unpausing valor from 
friend and foe. 

On Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 1864, how- 
ever. General Hancock w^as detached from the 
Army of the Potomac and again ordered to Wash- 
ington. 

There were so many veterans in the country un- 
employed, whose term of service had expired, that 
Government determined to call them into the field 
again. These tried soldiers, having been once 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 227 

honorably discharged, hesitated to re-enter the 
service in regiments recruited since their own en- 
hstments, and hence President Lincoln sought the 
chief of the illustrious Generals of the army as the 
best to win them back. That chief was General 
Hancock. There was soon a tremendous response, 
and General Hancock was placed in his new com- 
mand, his headquarters were first established at 
Washington and afterwards at Winchester, Va. 
The division embracing the department of West 
Virginia, Pennsylvania and Washington, and his 
entire forces including the army of the Shenandoah, 
amounting to nearly one hundred thousand men of 
all arms. 

With this vast force General Hancock was under 
orders to be ready to move at short notice, either 
on Lynchburg, to operate with the Army of Ihe 
Potomac, or to take transport to the southern coast 
to co-operate with General Sherman. But the 
sudden breaking of Lee's lines at Petersburg and 
the surrender at Appomattox happily closed this 
part of the campaign. The crowning event of 
that period was yet to amaze this country and 
the whole world. That event was the assassination 
of Abraham Lincoln, 



223 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 



CIIAPTEH YII. 

CAN A GREAT SOLDIER BE A GOOD RULER? 

t 

Y reading of history does not lead me to sanc- 
.IJL ^^^^ ^^^ recent declaration of Mr. Carl Schurz, 
in his admirable speech, in Indiana, that the 
professional soldier is unfit for civil administration. 
Julius Caesar was no less renowned for the reforma- 
tion which he effected in the civil administration 
and laws of Rome than for his military achieve- 
ments. The civil code of Napoleon is as enduring 
a monument to hi^ fame as the field of Austerlitz. 
I have just been reading the angry prophecies ctf 
Henry Clay, 1816-1818, after General Jackson's 
brilliant military services in the second war 
against Great Britain, and contrasting them with 
his splendid record in favor of the Union forty- 
eight years ago. Washington himself was a 
professional soldier, having held the commission of 
Colonel in the Virginia forces as early as 1755, and 
almost continuously engaged in the profession of 
arms from that period until the close of the revolu- 
tionary war in 1783. Grant, measured by the 
results of his eight years in the Presidential chair, 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 229 

was eminently successful in civil administration. 
The rigid economy, and the severe methods of 
administration, and the exact system incident to 
the profession of arms, render it an admirable 
training-school for the executive head of the civil 
department of the government. 

Hancock as president will not be called upon to 
frame a code of laws, but to execute the statutes; 
and the argument that he is unfitted to perform 
the executive duties of his civil administration 
because he has heretofore been engaged in execu- 
ting a purely military code, which is itself com- 
posed chiefly of Acts of Congress, certainly can 
have no force with a reflecting mind. As 
president, he will be the chief magistrate of the 
republic, in which the citizen possesses all the 
liberty consistent with the safety of the govern- 
ment; and the government is vested with all the 
power consistent with the liberty of the citizen. 
Hancock will recognize and maintain both unfal- 
teringly. 

History attests that the wounds of civil war are 
best healed by the great and triumphant soldiers 
who have acted in them. General Garfield, in his 
letter of. acceptance, intimates that the South is in 
a quasi state of rebellion. Indeed, he implies that 
Democracy is rebellion, full-fledged, waiting for a 
fine day to fly. If this be true, then the days of the 
Union are numbered, for the Democratic Party, in 
1876, as shown by statistics universally admitted 



230 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

to be true, polled 280,000 more votes than were 
polled for the Republican candidate, and, according 
to this exhibit, the majority of the American 
people are hostile to the American Union — but 
happily it is not true. I would rather have the 
certificate of General U. S. Grant to attest my 
loyalty than that of any other living man ; and he 
recently declared in his speech at New Orleans, 
and at Cairo, 111., that ^' the flag of the Union is 
everywhere honored sincerely throughout the 
Southern States :" and he added, " the Past has 
gone forever ; henceforth the Blue and the Gray 
will march on, shoulder to shoulder." 

This sentiment was worthy of the illustrious 
soldier who interposed the shield of his own honor 
to protect the lives of his defeated and prostrate 
countrymen against a sanguinary policy at Wash- 
ington. It was a recognition of this spirit of 
national reconciliation, symbolized by recent utter- 
ances of General Grant, that led an artillery 
company at Buford, S. C, in December last, com- 
posed chiefly of survivors of the garrison of Fort 
Sumter, all of them Democrats, to fiire a salute of 
one hundred guns in honor of Grant's arrival at 
that ancient and historic town. General Garfield 
would, however, unmufile the war-drums again, and 
unfurl the standards of civil strife, or at least keep 
alive the passions that sprung from internecine war, 
while Hancock's chief ambition is to see American 
citizens gathered together fraternally once more 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 231 

under the shelter of the common mansion of the 
Union which he did so much to preserve. 

DOES HANCOCK POSSESS GIFTS OF ADMINISTRATION ? 

The distinction between an executive officer and 
an officer of administration is sometimes difficult 
to define. We call the departments at Washington 
executive departments, and we call the President 
the executive, yet he is also entitled, the head of 
the administration, and the Constitution divides the 
different departments into executive, judicial and 
legislative. Popularly considered the head of the 
administration is very much like the head of an 
army ; but it happens that a good General who 
can direct his forces, anticipate a battle, and check 
his enemy, is not always an adept in civil admin- 
istration. 

And now you find the skilful politician baffled 
at every other point, defeated in his anxiety to find 
some salient defect in General Hancock's armor, 
humiliated even in his attempts to invent a conve- 
nient calumny, falling back, at last, upon the 
comfortable assumption that General Hancock 
knows nothing of civil administration ; that his 
experience has been purely military ; and that, of 
course, he knows nothing about the public men of 
the country. 

If you will turn a page over and read the chapter 
in which 1 describe General Hancock at Governor's 
Island, and, with that in your mind, will consider 



232 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

liow many different communities and interests and 
people Hancock lias been for ten years constantly 
associating with, you may realize that the division 
he superintends is in itself many times larger than 
the entire country over which Washington, or 
Jefferson, or Andrew Jackson presided, and that 
this immense territory in time of peace exacts 
not only the most delicate superintendence, but 
such a familiarity with every variety of thought 
and production^ and many other relations of society 
and of parties, as would irresistibly inform and 
educate any man if he were not already well- 
trained and well-balanced. 

One of our public speakers compares General 
Hancock with General Washington; and those 
who have seen the exactness of the book-keeping 
and the journal of the first President of the United 
States, the minuteness with which he kept his own 
accounts, and the care with which he regulated his 
business with the government, will, as they study 
the almost punctilious methods of General Han- 
cock, recognize the justice of at least a part of this 
parallel. All sides admit and applaud the impetu- 
ous valor of General Hancock, his almost reckless 
disregard of his own life in battle, his singular 
composure on horseback in the smoke and fire and 
leaden rain of a fatal conflict ; and yet those who 
have known him nearest and best freely unite in 
the opinion that he is also one of the most cautious 
and careful of business men, directing and control- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 233 

ling his own affairs with remarkable ability. He 
has a singular eye for detail, and a keen sense of 
the imperious obligations he owes to his govern- 
ment. Manners enter largely into administration. 
The gift of kindness to inferiors is so rare among 
leading public men absorbed in heavy duties, that to 
watch the affection of those connected with General 
Hancock, as w^ell in the field as in private life, in 
camp and in his own bureau, proves that he is a 
charming companion and benevolent superior. No- 
thing has impressed me more in this last examina- 
tion of his habits than the high admiration for his 
character and capacity by men who are still 
attached to the Republican Party and have known 
the Democratic candidate for president. Could 
anything be more explicit in this connection than 
the words of General W. T. Sherman, his own 
immediate commander-in-chief, the general of the 
American armies? 

" If you will sit down and write the best thing 
that can be put in language about General Han- 
cock, as an officer and a gentleman, I will sign it 
without hesitation." 

We are told that order is heaven's first law, and 
those who have seen General Hancock at the head 
of a great army, like those who have met him at 
the head of his vast division, managing it from the 
little island where he has his home now, will un- 
derstand what weight to attach to this tribute. 
It is therefore admitted that General Hancock is 



234 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

not only a soldier and a gentleman, that he not 
only makes a good administrative as well as execu- 
tive officer, but it now turns out that he knows 
how to manage his own affairs as well, and that he' 
does not belong to that class who grow old without 
taking care of their own estates. Here again he 
resembles General Washington, who, besides 
leaving the example of an unparalleled civil and 
military success, bequeathed to posterity a vade 
mecum of domestic regularity and business correct- 
ness. Surely these are the unconscious and un- 
written, but nevertheless positive pledges of high 
administrative gifts. And when we add to them 
the sterling fact that he is also an honest and in- 
corruptible man, we need no further guarantees of 
his fitness for the highest office in the gift of the 
American people. But what after all is this fresh 
demand for statesmanship in the Presidency ? I 
can well understand why a statesman, after the 
model of Jefferson and Madison and Monroe, 
might be hungered for in the Presidential office at 
present. But modern politics seems to have lost 
that high ideal, and the accepted statesman of the 
hour is one trained to the artifices of Washington 
life, to the intrigues of local politics, to associations 
with questionable favorites, to confidential com- 
mittals to reckless combinations, and to that dread- 
ful practice, which, in the hard school of the costly 
luxuries of the Capital and to the guilty expenses, 
too often captures and kills impecunious politicians. 



^ 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 235 

Well, General Hancock is not such a man. Here, 
at least, he falls short of party expectation. But 
I cannot believe that because he has not become 
indurated by such practices, he is not therefore the 
better qualified for the best position in the gift of 
the American people. 

There is no better judge of General Hancock 
than the men who served with him on his staff 
during the civil war, and one of these is General 
F. A. Walker, the fearless and fastidious Superin- 
tendent of the Census Bureau, at Washington, a Re- 
publican scholar, who bore such a relation to Gen. 
Hancock, as authorized him to pay such a compli- 
ment to his Chief as can only come from his heart. 
General Walker is my type of the civil service ; 
he is one of the few independent officials at Wash- 
ington. He filled the bill, not only of gentleman- 
like deportment during the war, but of cool courage, 
precisely as now he fills the bill in his deportment 
at the National Capital, of entire self-reliance and in- 
nate courtesy. Both these traits make him regard- 
less of mere party dictation ; hence he wins the 
respect of friend and foe. 

This is what General Walker says of General 
Hancock, under date of July 12, 1880. 

" He was an ideal commander. His presence in the camp or along 
the line was like an impulse which every soldier felt. It seemed to 
travel through the army like a great wave. It is needless to say that 
he was everywhere beloved and admired. It was impossible for it to be 
otherwise when one saw the force of his character and his enthusiasm 



236 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

and energy. As a militarj genius he was a tactician of great skill 
and adroitness, as well as an executor of energy and power. It is sel- 
dom that you find these qualities in one man, for it is generally con- 
sidered as incompatible that a sagacity which was almost cunning should 
be combined with dash and industry. General Hancock possessed both 
to a high degree. Then he had all the instincts of a stafF officer in re- 
gard to keeping up the discipline and the condition of his command. 
He might have been the Inspector General, for the care he exercised. 
Then he had a perfect passion for what is known in the army as ' Pa- 
pers.' I remember this from a very lively experience. Oftentimes 
when I had worked twelve or fourteen hours, during the day, and was 
nearly ready to drop, he would send for me, and for two hours longer 
would keep me in his tent, going over a great mass of correspondence 
and orders. He had a love for all the details of the camp and of the 
march, and a capacity to receive and understand them. He was im- 
mensely particular, and a man who, generally speaking, paid apparent- 
ly an unnecessary attention to nice points. Orders and letters must be 
written with the greatest punctilio and care, whether under a tree, in 
the rain, or in headquarters. He would do work that any other Gene- 
ral would leave to his Adjutant, giving a great deal of his time and 
personal attention to questions relating to regulations, to breaches of 
discipline, and to the various reports, even though of a routine nature. 
When in battle he never issued commands from the rear, but was on 
the field in person. Even after he had given an order he would him- 
self see that it was carried out. This was not always the pleasantest 
position for a subordinate officer ; but, looking back now, I can see that 
Hancock's almost invariable success was due to his incessant wakeful- 
ness and vigilance. He knew what he wanted, and that a single word 
misunderstood might cause disaster to his troops or make him lose a 
victory. He was not willing to run any risks." 

GENERAL HANCOCK AT GOVERNOR'S ISLAND IN 1880. 

While at Governor's Island a few days ago, I 
was much impressed by the unusual order, the 



. WINFIELB SCOTT HANCOCK. 237 

system and refined taste, prevailing in the grounds 
around the headquarters of General Hancock. lie 
occupies a comfortable mansion with his family. 
It lies just below the Battery, and is surrounded 
by the East River, and the North River, the main 
channel passing to the ocean and the bay. Gover- 
nor's Island covers an area of sixty-five acres, and 
belongs to the United States. The present beauty 
of the Island, as well as the prevailing neatness 
and comfort, is owing to the active personal super- 
vision of General Hancock, and shows that his 
attention to the trees on the estate of his father- 
in-law near St. Louis, has always been applied to 
the military posts he has periodically occupied. 
He takes great delight in arboriculture, and many of 
the trees of Governor s Island were planted by him. 
They prove the zeal with which he has directed 
and kept them in perfect order himself His officers 
said that his knowledge of trees is almost intuitive. 
Another little incident deserves mention. The 
yellow fever broke out on the island some twelve 
years ago, and there were twenty-six or more fatal 
cases, among them that of Chaplain Davidson. 
The quarantine station was not then so far down as 
it is now. A mattress having been thrown over- 
board from one ot the vessels, it landed on the is- 
land, which spread the infection^ having been 
picked up by some of the soldiers. But since the 
General has been in command, all refuse matter 
stranding on the shores is at once properly disposed 



238 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

of. The health and purity of this fine government 
establishment make it one of the most attractive 
objects to residents and strangers. Under the Gen- 
eral's administration water-pipes have been laid 
under Buttermilk Channel from Brooklyn, so that 
there is an abundant supply of 'water. Water-plugs 
are seen placed at intervals on the island conve- 
nient for use. One gathers a fair idea of the 
habits of men by precisely such incidents as these. 

Few persons seem to understand the magnitude 
of the district or military Division of the Atlantic 
over which the General presides. It extends from 
Duluth, Min., embracing all the lake States, and 
all the north-eastern and Eastern States to the At- 
lantic, down to Texas. It includes the New Eng- 
land States, the States of New York, Pennsylvania, 
New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West 
Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, 
District of Columbia, North Carolina, South Caro- 
lina, Georgia Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missis- 
sippi, Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee. This 
Division is divided into two Departments — the De- 
partment of the East and the Department of the 
South. He is in constant personal or written in- 
tercourse with this vast domain. 

There is quite a military colony at Governor's 
Island; the population about five hundred. The 
General's staff consists of General Fry, Adjutant 
General ; General McKeever, Assistant- Adj utant- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 239 

General ; Gen. Clarke, Chief Commissioner of Sub- 
sistence; General Perry, Chief Quartermaster; Gen. 
Cuyler, Medical Director ; Gen. Davis, Inspector- 
General ; Gen. Arnold, Acting Assistant-Inspector- 
General; Col. Larned, Chief Paymaster; Maj. Gard- 
ner, Judge Advocate. His Aides are Col. Mitchell, 
Capt. Wharton and Capt. Ward. Gen. Thomas 
L. Crittenden, Superintendent of the general re- 
cruiting service, also resides here. The troops in 
the garrison are commanded by Capt. Thos. Ward 
of the 1st artillery. There is a little chapel on 
the Island supported by Trinity Parish, where 
Chaplain Goodwin officiates. Tlie officers and their 
families live in eighteen buildings outside the fort. 
The old New York arsenal is located on the upper 
end of the island commanded by Col. Baylor, of 
the Ordnance Department. 

HANCOCK AS A MILITARY GOVERNOR IN TIME OF PEACE. 

The civil record of General Hancock during his 
administration in Louisiana and Texas is gratefully 
recalled with just pleasure by the people of the 
South, and in this calmer hour, when there should 
be a hearty union in the restoration of the kindly 
feeling between the sections, some reference to 
that record will also be useful and interesting in 
the North. Hancock assumed command of his 
department in the following characteristic docu- 
ment, which I reprint, asking my readers carefully 
to study it, in the full belief that there is not a 
single principle asserted, or promise made, that is 
not in full accordance with republican ideas : 



240 LIFE AND PUBLIC CABEEB OF 

HEADQUARTERS FIFTH MILITARY DISTRICT, 

General Orders. 1 ^^^ Orleans, La., November 29, 1867. 
No. 40. J ' ' ' 

I. In accordance with general orders No. 81, Headquarters of the 
Army, Adjutant General's Office, Washington, D. C, August 27th, 
1876, Major- General W. S. Hancock hereby assumes command of the 
Fifth Military District and of the Department composed of the States 
of Louisiana and Texas. 

II. The General Commanding is gratified to learn that peace and 
quiet reign in this Department. It will be his purpose to preserve this 
condition of things. As a means to this great end he regards the main- 
tenance of the civil authorities in the faithful execution of the laws as 
the most efficient under existing circumstances. 

In war it is indispensable to repel force by force, and overthrow and 
destroy opposition to lawful authority. But when insurrectionary force 
has been overthrown and peace established, and the civil authorities are 
ready and willing to perform their duties, the military power should 
cease to lead, and the civil administration resume its natural and right- 
ful dominion. Solemnly impressed with these views, the General an- 
nounces that the great principles of American liberty are still the lawful 
inheritance of this people, and ever should be. The right of trial by 
jury, the habeas corpus, the liberty of the press, the freedom of speech, 
the natural rights of persons, and the rights of property must be pre- 
served. 

Free institutions, while they are essential to the prosperity and hap- 
piness of the people, always furnish the strongest inducements to peace 
and order. Crimes and offences committed in this district 'must be re- 
ferred to the consideration and judgment of the regular civil tribunals, 
and those tribunals will be supported in their lawful jurisdiction. 

Should there be violations of existing laws which are not inquired 
into by the civil magistrates, or should failure in the administration of 
justice by the courts be complained of, the cases will be reported to these 
headquarters, when such orders will be made as may be deemed neces- 
sary. 

While the General thus indicates his purpose to respect the liberties 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 241 

of the people, he wishes all to understand that armed insurrection 
or forcible resistance to the law will be instantly suppressed by arms. 
By command of Major-General W. S. Hancock. 
[Official.] 

It is not necessary to repeat the thought that 
these ideas are a part of the law of all civilizations; 
but it may serve a present purpose to state that, 
even now, some of the mere parrots of past enmi- 
ties, unable to challenge this great assurance to a 
conquered people, are trying to array General 
Phil. Sheridan, the soldier whom Hancodk super- 
seded in Texas and Louisiana in 1867, among the 
adversaries of the Democratic Candidate for Presi- 
dent. This attempt was made in the presence of 
General Garfield, on Wednesday, August 4, 1880, 
by a New York politician, as General Garfield was 
on his way to New York City. It created no sen- 
sation, because, a few days before. General Sheri- 
dan spoke of Hancock as follows: "I am not in 
politics; but General Hancock is a great and good 
man. The Democrats have not made any mistake 
this time." . 

Since November 29, 1867, not the South alone, 
but all the world has undergone a tremendous 
change for the better. And of all the thousands 
who will give to this order of General Hancock 
their hearty approval to-day, at least hundreds 
thirteen years ago, rejected its plain and unan- 
swerable guarantees as so many evidences of sym- 
pathy with the disloyal South. Such has been 
16 



242 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

the transformation of millions of men. Never was 
there a plainer or more universal truth. You have 
only to turn over to that chapter in which I speak 
of the condition of the South to find my assertion 
proved. The radicals that came in with Abraham 
Lincoln, breathing vengeance upon the South, in 
nearly every instance died conservatives : Horace 
Greeley kept standing at the head of the Tribune, 
the fierce motto," On to Richmond," and yet Horace 
Greeley died as the Southern candidate for President 
of the United States, his heart full of love and 
peace for hisSouthern brothers. Salmon P. Chase, 
an original republican, publicly gave in his adhesion 
to Democratic ideas before he passed over. The 
radical Charles Sumner, Senator in Congress from 
Massachusetts, went to his long home anxious to 
the last to prove his fidelity to the undying maxim, 
''Universal amnesty and universal sufirage." 
Henry Wilson, the dead Vice-Presideat, was a most 
tolerant philosopher. Henry J. Raymond, the Re- 
publican editor of the New York Times, prema 
turely called hence June 18th, 1860, first having 
finished an admirable life of Abraham Lincoln 
with a history of his administration, was like Mr. 
Seward, an original republican, a consistent pro- 
testant against severe measures towards the South. 
These and many other striking metamorphoses of 
public men and public sentiment, found in every 
city in the Union and every community, will now 
understand the justice of Hancock's order No. 40. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 243 

That order explains why his soldier's mind in 
1867 and 1868, was prepared for the best treat- 
ment of the Southern people of the Gulf States. 
Let us also particularly remember that when Gov- 
ernor Pease of Texas, took violent issue through 
the newspapers with the administration of General 
Hancock, the Governor simply gave utterance to 
the radical sentiment at that time. He did not 
know that it was rapidly changing. 

I do not know if Governor Pease is still living. 
He was born in Connecticut and emigrated to Texas 
in 1855 ; was a law partner of Gen. Sam Houston, 
Governor of Texas from 1853 to 1857, and was in 
1857 re-elected to the same office, remaining therein 
until 1870. He believed in extreme measures. 
General Hancock did not. And when Governor 
Pease printed his criticisms upon General Hancock, 
the General replied in a letter, dated March 9, 
1868, which is so important that I give the whole 
of it here, making the same comment upon it that 
I applied to General Order No. 40, namely that is 
a paper of rare ability, moderation and good sense, 
alike applicable to every community North and 
South. If the principles herein asserted are ap- 
plied to General Hancock's administration in the 
event of his election to the Presidency, he will 
need nothing more to secure for himself and his 
posterity the gratitude of the American people. 
There are pages in this letter of very great elo- 
quence, but the moderation of the whole will be 



244 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

most attractive to the philosophic student. It can- 
not be said that the author of such a state paper 
is not quahfied to discharge the duties of the Presi- 
dent of the United States. The grand repubUcan 
arraignment of General Hancock, is, that he is a 
simple soldier, not equipped for civil administration, 
but I question if the military proclamation of An- 
drew Jackson, in 1832, against John C. Calhoun's 
nullification scheme, contains a purer system of real 
republican government than is summarized in 
General Hancock's letter to Governor Pease. And 
yet the general reader need not be told that Gene- 
ral Jackson, himself a soldier, was everywhere de- 
nounced by the Whigs of that time as having pro- 
cured a celebrated lawyer to prepare for him a pro- 
nunciamento which aroused the country from Maine 
to Georgia, and called from the great expounder 
of the constitution himself, Daniel Webster, a tri- 
bute of unforgotten eloquence to the soldier Presi- 
dent of the United States. 

GENERAL HANCOCk'S CELEBRATED LETTER TO 
GOVERNOR PEASE OF TEXAS. 

Headquarters Fifth Military District, 
New Orleans, La., March 9, 1868. 
To His Excellency, E. M. Pease, Governor of Texas : 

Sir : — Your communication of the 17tli January last, was received 
in due course of mail, (the 27th January,) but not until it had been 
widely circulated by the newspaper press. To such a letter — written 
and published for manifest purposes — it has been my intention to re- 
ply as soon as leisure from more important business would permit. 
Your statement that the act of Congress " to provide for the more 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 245 

efficient government of the rebel States," declares that whatever gov- 
ernment existed in Texas was provisional ; that peace and order should 
be enforced ; that Texas should be part of the Fifth Militarj District 
and subject to military power ; that the President should appoint an 
officer to command in said district, and detail a force to protect the 
rights of person and property, suppress insurrection and violence, and 
punish offenders, either by military commission, or through the action 
of local civil tribunals, as in his judgment might seem best, will not 
be disputed. One need only read the act to perceive it contains such 
provisions. But how all this is supposed to have made it my duty to 
order the military commission requested, you have entirely failed to 
show. The power to do a thing if shown, and the propriety of doing 
it, are often very different matters. You observe you are at a loss to 
understand how a government, without representation in Congress or 
a militia force, and subject to military power, can be said to be in the 
full exercise of all its proper powers. You do not reflect that this 
government, created or permitted by Congress, has all the powers 
which the act intends, and may fully exercise them accordingly. If 
you think it ought to have more powers, should be allowed to send 
members to Congress, wield a militia force, and possess yet other 
powers, your complaint is not to be preferred against me, but against 
Congress, who made it what it is. 

As respects the issue between us, any question as to what Congress 
ought to have done has no pertinence. You admit the act of Congress 
authorizes me to try an offender by military commission, or allow the 
local civil tribunals to try, as I shall deem, best; and you cannot deny 
the act expressly recognizes such local civil tribunals as legal authori- 
ties for the purpose specified. When you contend there are no legal 
local tribunals for any purpose in Texas, you must either deny the 
plain reading of the act of Congress or the power of Congress to pass 
the act. 

Y^ou next remark that yon dissent from my declaration, ** that the 
country (Texas) is in a state of profound peace," and proceed to state 
the grounds of your dissent. They appear to me not a little extraor- 
dinary. I quote your words : " It is true there no longer exists here 



246 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

(Texas) any organized resistance to the authority of the United 
States." " But a large majority of the white population who partici- 
cipated in the late rebellion, are embittered against the Government, 
and yield to it an unwilling obedience." Nevertheless, you concede 
they do yield it obedience. You proceed : 

" None of this class have any affection for the Government, and very 
few any respect for it. They regard the legislation of Congress on 
the subject of reconstruction as unconstitutional and hostile to their 
interests, and consider the government now existing here under au- 
thority of the United States as an usurpation on their rights. They 
look on the emancipation of their late slaves and the disfranchise- 
ment of a portion of their own class, as an act of insult and oppres- 
sion." 

And this is all you have to present for proof that war and not peace 
prevails in Texas ; and hence it becomes my duty— so you suppose — 
to set aside the local civil tribunals, and enforce the penal code against 
citizens by means of military commissions. 

My dear sir, 1 am not a lawyer, nor has it been my business, as it 
may have been yours, to study the philosophy of statecraft and poli- 
tics. But I may lay claim, after an experience of more than half a 
lifetime, to some poor knowledge of men and some appreciation of 
what is necessary to social order and happiness. And for the future 
of our common country, I could devoutly wish that no great number 
of our people have yet fallen in with the views you appear to enter- 
tain. Woe be to us whenever it shall come to pass that the power of 
the magistrate — civil or military — is permitted to deal with the mere 
opinions or feelings of the people. 

I have been accustomed to believe that sentiments of respect or dis- 
respect, and feelings of affection, love or hatred, so long as not de- 
veloped into acts in violation of law, were matters wholly beyond the 
punitory power of human tribunals. 

I will maintain that the entire freedom of thought and speech, how- 
ever acrimoniously indulged, is consistent with the noblest aspirations 
of man, and the happiest condition of his race. 

When a boy I remember to have read a speech of Lord Chatham, 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 247 

delivered in Parliament. It was during our Kevolutionary war, and 
related to the policy of employing the savages on the side of Britain. 
You may be more familiar with the speech than I am. If I am not 
greatly mistaken, his lordship denounced the British Government — 
his government — in terms of unmeasured bitterness. He character- 
ized its policy as revolting to every sentiment of humanity and re- 
ligion ; proclaimed it covered with disgrace, and vented his eternal 
abhorrence of it and its measures. It may, I think, be safely asserted 
that a majority of the British nation concurred in the views of Lord 
Chatham. But who ever supposed that profound peace was not exist- 
ing in that kingdom, or that government had any authority to question 
the absolute ri^ht of the opposition to express their objections to the 
propriety of the king's measures in any Avords, or to any extent they 
pleased ? It would be difficult to show that the opponents of the 
Government in the days of the elder Adams, or Jefferson, or Jackson, 
exhibited for it either '* affection " or '' respect." You are conversant 
with the history of our past parties and political struggles touching 
legislation on alienage, sedition, the embargo, national banks, our wars, 
with England and Mexico, and cannot be ignorant of the fact, that 
for one party to assert that a law or system of legislation is unconsti- 
tutional, oppressive and usurpative, is not a new thing in the United 
States. That the people of Texas consider acts of Congress unconsti- 
tutional, oppressive, or insulting to them, is of no consequence to the 
matter in hand. The President of the United States has announced 
his opinion that these acts of Congress are unconstitutional. The Su- 
preme Court, as you are aware, not long ago decided unanimously that 
a certain military commission was unconstitutional. Our people 
everywhere, in every State, without reference to the side they took 
during the rebellion, differ as to the constitutionality of these acts of 
Congress. How the matter really is, neither you nor I may dogmati- 
cally affirm. 

If you deem them constitutional laws and beneficial to the country, 
you not only have the right to publish your opinions, but it might be 
your bounden duty as a citizen to do so. Not less is it the privilege 
and duty of any and every citizen, wherever residing, to publish his 



248 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

opinion freely and fearlessly on this and every question which he 
thinks concerns his interest. This is merely in accordance with the 
principles of our free government ; and neither you nor I would wish 
to live under any other. It is time now, at the end of almost two 
years from the close of the war, we should begin to recollect what 
manner of people we are; to tolerate again free, popular discussion, and 
extend some forbearance and consideration to opposing views. The 
maxims, that in all intellectual contests truth is mighty and must pre- 
vail, and that error is harmless when reason is left free to combat it, are 
not only sound, but salutary. It is a poor compliment, to the merit of 
such a cause, that its advocates would silence opposition by force ; and 
generally those only who are in the wrong will resort to this ungene- 
rous means. I am confident you will not commit your serious judgment 
to the proposition that any amount of discussion, or any sort of opinions, 
however unwise in your judgment, or any assertion or feeling, however 
resentful or bitter, not resulting in a breach of law, can furnish 
justification for your denial that profound peace exists in Texas. You 
might as well deny that profound peace exists in New York, Penn- 
sylvania, Maryland, California, Ohio and Kentucky, where a majority 
of the people differ with a minority on these questions ; or that pro- 
found peace exists in the House of Representatives, or the Senate, at 
Washington, or in the Supreme Court, where all these questions have 
been repeatedly discussed, and parties respectfully and patiently heard. 
You next complain that in parts of the State (Texas) it is difiicult to 
enforce the criminal laws ; that sherifis fail to arrest ; that grand jurors 
will not always indict ; that in some cases the military acting in aid 
of the civil authorities have not been able to execute the process of the 
courts; that petit jurors have acquitted persons adjudged guilty by 
you ; and that other persons charged Avith ofiences have broke jail and 
fled from prosecution. I know not how these things are; but admit- 
ting your representations literally true, if for such reasons I should set 
aside the local civil tribunals and order a military commission, there 
is no place in the United States where it might not be done with equal 
propriety. There is not a State in the Union — North or South — 
where the like facts are not continually happening. Perfection is not 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 249 

to be predicated of man or liis works. No one can reasonably expect 
certain and absolute justice in human transactions ; and if military- 
power is to be set in motion, on the principles for which you would 
seem to contend, I fear that a civil government, regulated by laws, 
could have no abiding place beneath the circuit of the sun. It is 
rather more than hinted in your letter, that there is no local State 
government in Texas, and no local laws outside of the acts of Congress, 
which I ought to respect ; and that I should undertake to protect the 
rights of persons and property in my own way and in an arbitrary 
manner. If such be your meaning, I am compelled to differ with you. 
After the abolition of slavery, (an event which I hope no one now re- 
grets,) the laws of Louisiana and Texas existing prior to the rebellion, 
and not in conflict with the acts of Congress, comprised a vast system 
of jurisprudence, both civil and criminal. It required not volumes 
only, but libraries to contain them. They laid down principles and 
precedents for ascertaining the rights and adjusting the controversies 
of men, in every conceivable case. They were the creations of great 
and good and learned men, who had labored, in their day, for their 
kind, and gone down to the grave long before our recent troubles, 
leaving their works an inestimable legacy to the human race. These 
laws, as I am informed, connected the civilization of past and present 
ages, and testified of the justice, wisdom, humanity and patriotism of 
more than one nation, through whose records they descended to the 
present people of these States. I am satisfied, from representations of 
persons competent to judge, they are as perfect a system of laws as 
may be found elsewhere, and better suited than any other to the con- 
dition of this people, for by them they have long been governed. 
Why should it be supposed Congress has abolished these laws ? Why 
should any one wish to abolish them ? They have committed no 
treason, nor are hostile to the United States, nor countenance crime, 
nor favor injustice. On them, as on a foundation of rock, reposes 
almost the entire superstructure of social order in these two States. 
Annul this code of local laws, and there would be no longer any rights, 
either of person or property here. Abolish the local civil tribunals 
made to execute them, and you would virtually annul the laws, except 



250 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

in reference to the very few cases cognizable in tlie federal courts. 
Let us for a moment suppose the whole local civil code annulled, and 
that I am left, as commander of the Fifth Military District, the sole 
fountain of law and justice. This is the position in which you would 
place me. 

I am now to protect all rights and redress all Avrongs. How is it 
possible for me to do it? Innumerable questions arise, of which I 
am not only ignorant, but to the solution of which a military court is 
entirely unfitted. One would establish a will, another a deed ; or the 
question is one of succession, or partnership, or descent, or trust; a 
suit of ejectment or claim to chattels; or the application may relate to 
robbery, theft, arson, or murder. How am I to take the first step in 
any such matter? If I turn to the acts of Congress I find nothing 
on the subject. I dare not open the authors on the local code, for it 
has ceased to exist. 

And you tell me that in this perplexing condition I am to furnish 
by dint of my own hasty and crude judgment, the legislation de- 
manded by the vast and manifold interests of the people ! I repeat, 
sir, that you, and not Congress, are responsible for the monstrous sug- 
gestion that there are no local laws or institutions here to be respected 
by me, outside the acts of Congress. I say unhesitatingly, if it were 
possible that Congress should pass an act abolishing the local codes 
for Louisiana and Texas — which I do not believe — and it should fall 
to my lot to supply their places with something of my own, I do 
not see how I could do better than follow the laws in force here 
prior to the rebellion, excepting whatever therein shall relate to 
slavery. 

Power may destroy the forms, but not the principles of justice; these 
will live in spite even of the sword. History tells us that the Eoman 
pandects were lost for a long period among the rubbish that war and 
revolution had heaped upon them, but at length were dug out of the 
ruins — again to be regarded as a precious treasure. 

You arc pleased to state that " since the publication of (my) gene- 
ral orders Xo. 40, there has been a perceptible increase of crime and 
manifestations of hostile feeling toward the Government and its sup- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 253 

porters," and add that it is ''an unpleasant duty to give such a recital 
of the condition of the country." 

You will permit me to say that I deem it impossible the first of these 
statements can be true, and that I do very greatly doubt the correctneps 
of the second. General order No. 40 was issued at New Orleans, Nov- 
ember 29, 1867, and your letter was dated January 17, 1868. Allowing 
time for order No. 40 to reach Texas and become generally known, 
some additional time must have elapsed before its effect would be mani- 
fested, and yet a further time must transpire before you would be able 
to collect the evidence of what you term " the condition of the country ; '' 
and yet, after all this, you would have to make the necessary investiga- 
tions to ascertain if order No. 40 or something else was the cause. The 
time, therefore, remaining to enable you, before the 17th of January, 
1868, to reach a satisfactory conclusion on so delicate and nice a ques- 
tion must have been very short. How you proceeded, whether you in- 
vestigated yourself or through third persons, and if so, who they were, 
what their competency and fairness, on what evidence you rested your 
conclusion, or whether you ascertained these facts at all, are points upon 
which your letter so discreetly omits all mention, that I may well be 
be excused for not relying implicitly upon it ; nor is my difficulty dimin- 
ished by the fact that in another part of your letter you state that ever 
since the close of the war a very large portion of the people have had 
no affection for the Government, but bitterness of feeling only. Had 
the duty of publishing and circulating through the country long before 
it reached me, your statement that the action of the District Commander 
was increasing crime and hostile feelings against the Government, been 
less painful to your sensibilities, it might possibly have occurred to you 
to furnish something on the subject in addition to your bare assertion. 

But what was order No. 40, and how could it have the effect you 
attribute to it ? It sets forth that ** the great principles of American 
liberty are still the inheritance of this people and ever should be, that 
the right of trial by jury, the habeas corpus, the liberty of the press, the 
freedom of speech, and the natural rights of persons and property must 
be preserved." Will you question the truth of these declarations? 
"Which one of these great principles of liberty are you ready to deny 



254 11 FE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

and repudiate ? Whoever does so avows himself the enemy of human 
liberty and the advocate of despotism. Was there any intimation in 
general order No. 40 that any crimes or breaches of law would be 
conntenanced ? You know that there was not. On the contrary, you 
know perfectly well that while '' the consideration of crime and offences 
committed in the Fifth Military District was referred to the judgment 
of the regular civil tribunals," a pledge was given in order No. 40, which 
all understood, that these tribunals would be supported in their lawful 
jurisdiction, and that " forcible resistance to law would be instantly 
suppressed by arms." You will not affirm that this pledge has ever 
been forfeited. There has not been a moment since I have been in 
command of the Fifth District, when the whole military force in my 
hands has not been ready to support the civil authorities of Texas in 
the execution of the laws. And I am unwilling to believe they would 
refuse to call for aid if they needed it. 

There are some considerations which, it seems to me, should cause 
you to hesitate before indulging in wholesale censures against the civil 
authorities of Texas. You are yourself the chief of these authorities, 
not elected by the people, but created by the military. Not long after 
you had thus come into office, all the judges of the Supreme Court of 
Texas — five in number — were removed from office, and new appoint- 
ments made ; twelve of the seventeen district judges were removed, 
and others appointed. County officers, more or less, in seventy-five 
out of one hundred and twenty-eight counties, were removed, and 
others appointed in their places. It is fair to conclude that the execu- 
tive and judicial civil functionaries in Texas are the persons whom you 
desire to fill the offices. It is proper to mention, also, that none but 
registered citizens, and only those who could take the test oath, have 
been allowed to serve as jurors during your administration. Now, it 
is against this local government, created by military power prior to 
my coming here, and so composed of your personal and political friends, 
that you have preferred the most grievous complaints. It is of them 

that you have asserted they will not do their duty ; they will not maintain 
justice; will not arrest offenders ; will not punish crimes ; and that out of 

one hundred homicides committed in the last twelve months, not over ten 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 255 

arrests have been made ; and bj means of sucb gross disregard of duty, 
you declare that neither property nor life is safe in Texas. 

Certainly you could have said nothing more to the discredit of the 
officials who are now in office. If the facts be as you allege, a mystery 
is presented for which I can imagine no explanation. Why is it that 
your political friends, backed up and sustained by the whole military 
power of the United States in this district, should be unwilling to 
enforce the laws against that part of the population lately in rebellion, 
and whom you represent as the offenders ? In all the history of these 
troubles, I have never seen or heard before of such a fact. I repeat, if 
the fact be so, it is a profound mystery, utterly surpassing my compre- 
hension. I am constrained to declare that I believe you are in very 
great error as to facts. On careful examination at the proper source, I 
find that at the date of your letter four cases only of homicides had 
been reported to these headquarters as having occurred since Novem- 
ber 29, 1867, the date of order No. 40, and these cases were ordered to be 
tried or investigated as soon as the reports were received. However, 
the fact of the one hundred homicides may still be correct, as stated by 
you. 

The Freedman's Bureau in Texas reported one hundred and sixty ; 
how many of these were by Indians and Mexicans, and how the re- 
mainder were classified, is not known, nor is it known whether these 
data are accurate. 

The report of the commanding officer of the District of Texas shows 
that since I assumed command no applications have been made to him 
by you for the arrest of criminals in the State of Texas. 

To this date eighteen cases of homicides have been reported to me as 
having occurred since November 29, 1867, although special instructions 
had been given to report such cases as they occur. Of these, five were 
committed by Indians, one by a Mexican, one by an insane man, three 
by colored men, two of women by their husbands, and of the remainder 
pome by parties unknown— all of which could be scarcely attributable 
to order No. 40. If the reports received since the issuing of order No. 
40 are correct, they exhibit no increase of homicides in my time, if you 
are correct that one hundred had occurred in the past twelve months. 



256 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

That there has not been a perfect administration of justice in Texas 
I am not prepared to deny. 

That there has been no such wanton disregard of duty on the part of 
officials as you allege, I am well satisfied A very little while ago you 
regai:ded the present officials in Texas the only ones who could be 
safely trusted with power. Now you pronounce them worthless, and 
would cast them aside. 

I have found little else in your letter but indications of temper lashed 
into excitement by causes which I deem mostly imaginary; a great con- 
fidence in the accuracy of your own opinions, and an intolerance of the 
opinions of others ; a desire to punish the thoughts and feelings of those 
who differ from you, and an impatience which magnifies the short- 
comings of officials who are perhaps as earnest and conscientious in the 
discharge of their duties as yourself, and a most unsound conclusion that 
while any persons are to be found wanting in affection or respect for 
government or yielding it obedience from motives which you do not 
approve, war and not peace, is the status, and all such persons are the 
proper subjects for military penal jurisdiction. 

If I have written anything to disabuse your mind of so grave an error, 
I shall be gratified. 

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

W. S. HANCOCK, 
Major-General Commanding. 

Following this fine letter to Governor Pease 
cr.me several other special orders, one sustaining 
the jurisdiction of the civil courts over the rights 
of private property, another securing the j)urity of 
elections and to prevent military interference at 
the polls ; another on the stay of civil processes ; 
another on the trial of offenses against the law of 
the state ; another on elections from the people, 
and another on the removals from office without 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 257 

judicial investigation and determination, one dis- 
claiming judicial functions in civil cases, &c. 

IS HE HONEST? 

There can be no questions of greater importance 
asked in reference to a Presidential candidate than 
those which relate to his j^ersonal integrity. The 
first test Thomas Jefferson applied to every appli- 
cant for office was, '^Is he honest?" Jefferson is 
also credited with the maxim that the whole art of 
government consists in the art of being honest. A 
very large proportion of the injury inflicted upon 
mankind by the mismanagement of public affairs 
can be directly traced to the venality, rapacity and 
dishonesty of kings, chiefs, prime ministers, 
heads of departments, and national, state or city 
officials or legislatures. We cannot doubt the cor- 
rectness of Jefferson's doctrines. A dishonest ruler 
can never be a safe or good ruler, no matter how 
richly he may be endowed with special talent. 
Dishonesty among men in high places has brought 
powerful nations into a most pitiable position by 
the peculation of funds appropriated for the sup- 
port of their armies and navies, and this has added 
so enormously to the burdens of our taxation that 
hundreds of millions of people are, in consequence, 
enduring numberless privations. The extent to 
which public debts and appropriations have been 
increased, simply by official villainy, exceeds belief. 
It was said of the men of humble origin and lim- 
17 



258 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

ited experience in conducting governments^ who 
came into power in England with Oliver Cromwell, 
that in the face of incredible difficulties and limited 
resources, they did infinitely more in the perform- 
ance of vast governmental duties l)ecause .they 
were honest merchants, common soldiers, and me- 
chanics, than any well trained diplomats and 
courtiers. Cromwell and his associates labored for 
the public good, while the royal favorites had no 
incentive but to enrich themselves by corruption. 
This lesson has been sadly repeated on our own 
soil. We have seen states and cities robbed so 
mercilessly by rascally officials, that -all their in- 
habitants groaned under the burden of taxation, 
and it was only by the complete or partial restora- 
tion of honest rule that a vestige of good govern- 
ment was retained and substantial prosperity par- 
tially restored. No government is rich or powerful 
enough permanently to endure thieves in its legis- 
lative assemblies and its executive departments. 
They never fail to make fearful additions to the 
public burdens, and thus to take from many tax- 
payers the money needed for self-support. In the 
end they totally wreck the most powerful king- 
doms, empires and republics. We have had a suf- 
ficient number of practical illustrations in our own 
country, of the mischiefs that flow from the pres- 
ence of jobbers in various branches of our govern- 
ment, to make clear the doctrine of Jefferson that 
it is necessary to keep such men out of office. Jef- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 259 

ferson displayed his characteristic and prophetic 
sagacity when he uttered the valuable warning 
that we should sedulously inquire in reference to 
every candidate for important position, — Is he hon- 
est ? The man in reference to whom an affirmative 
reply to this question cannot be clearly given does 
not deserve and should never receive the support 
of any patriotic citizen. A nominee for President, 
the highest and most powerful station in the gift 
of the people, should be not only pure, but above 
suspicion. In all matters that have a bearing upon 
his relations to public affairs, every act of his, bears 
directly upon the integrity of all those under him. 
This truth is so universally recognized that in all 
former campaigns, in the midst of torrents of abuse, 
heaped upon our candidates for office, I do not re- 
collect one in wdiich it has ever been charged that 
the Presidential nominee of any important party 
has betrayed his trust before his election, or has 
used his personal influence afterward, to enrich 
himself. Whatever may be said for or against for- 
mer occupants of the White House, it is conceded 
that they were untainted, incorruptible, and above 
all, innocent of the hideous crime of selling them- 
selves or their officers for power or influence. 

In fact, down to this day the line of American 
Presidents, from Washington to Hayes, has been 
made up of upright, conscientious and simple- 
minded men. And this may be said, with infinite 
truth, alike of the statesmen who filled that office 



260 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

in the first generation, beginning witli Jefferson and 
closing with Jackson, and of the second genera- 
tion, beginning with Harrison and closing with 
Grant. The poverty to which some of these Pres- 
idents have been reduced by their honest public 
services, affords a painful and convincing truth of 
their incorruptibility. Lincoln, Andrew Jackson 
and Ulysses S. Grant, all retired from office poor. 
Lincoln owed his first election and his re-election 
largely to the fact that everybody believed him to 
be "Honest Old Abe." In the doubtful contest of 
1876, when the necessity of reforming public 
abuses was a paramount issue, the personal integ- 
rity of Rutherford B. Hayes secured to him the 
support of thousands. And many would have cast 
their ballots for Samuel J. Tilden on account of his 
active participation in the movements by which 
the great reforms had been instituted in the City 
and State of New York, if they had not been pri- 
marily convinced of the undoubted integrity of 
his Republican rival. In the struggle of 1880, the 
question again looms up, whether the government 
shall be honestly administered ? This issue can 
never be ignored. The very first and highest duty 
of every voter is to institute searching inquiries in 
reference to the integrity of all Presidential candi- 
dates. 

General Winfield Scott Hancock has an unblem- 
ished record. I know of no candidate for the 
Presidential office that ha§ lived a purer, clearer, 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 261 

more unsuspected and spotless life. Busy calum- 
niators have sought and failed to find a single 
blemish upon his name. Even the charges in- 
vented against him have been abandoned by their 
authors, or rejected by his political adversaries. 
One of the most effective cartoons ever printed, 
represents a horde of hostile Republican writers 
searching in vain through his bureaus, boots, cloth- 
ing, and private apartments for a peg on which to 
hang a single plausible falsehood. 
Hancock is as honest as he is brave. Up to this 
moment he has not encountered a single personal 
adversary among the members of his own party ; 
in fact he never had an organization to force his 
nomination at Cincinnati. This unusual circum- 
stance does not spring from want of character, for 
no citizen ever had clearer views of public duty. 
Not the dimmest blot on his escutcheon has ever 
been discovered. 



262 LIF£: AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 



CHAPTER YIII. 

A WORD TO LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS REPUBLICANS. 

STRIKE from the column of the present Republi- 
can party the hundreds and thousands of De- 
mocrats who joined with the Republicans, attracted 
by the moderate and conciliatory course of Abraham 
Lincoln, and the dying injunction of Stephen A. 
Douglas, and there would not be enough left of the 
orscanization around General Garfield to command 
the electoral vote of a single Northern State. In 
a word, the purpose to which the modern Republi- 
cans now devote themselves, is hatred of the South, 
malignity that Mr. Lincoln scorned from his soul, 
and a partisan assault upon a brave soldier of the 
Republic, because he was born and remained a 
Democrat, a calumny that would have aroused the 
utmost indignation of Stephen A. Douglas. How 
what citizen, who cherishes either of these illustri- 
ous names, or remembers the sad fate of Abra- 
ham Lincoln, and the illustrious career of Stephen 
A. Douglas, can remain with a party, who regard 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK, 263 

General Hancock as unworthy because he is a 
Democrat, surpasses belief. 

General Hancock, at the time that Mr. Lincoln 
was murdered, was stationed at Winchester, in 
command of the Middle Military Division and 
Army of the Shenandoah. He was unutterably 
shocked at the atrocity of that dreadful deed, as 
indeed were all the people of the District among 
whom he was then temporarily located; for to him, 
as I have said, Abraham Lincoln was something 
more than a friend. The kind, quaint President 
always had a warm side for patriotic Democrats like 
Douglas and Hancock. After he was elected in 
1860 by a division of the Democratic party, Mr. 
Lincoln wrote me a letter, very much to my sur- 
prise, in which he spoke of my support of Douglas, 
his successful competitor for Senator of the United 
States in Illinois, in 1858, and wanted to know if 
he could do anything to serve me. I wrote back, 
deeply impressed by his unexpected compliment. 
Remembering as I did to his dying day, the 
simple and kindly nature of Horace Greeley, I ven- 
tured to mention Mr. Greeley as a fitting member 
of his cabinet, stating at the same time that Mr. 
Greeley had written to Mr. Buchanan nearly four 
years before, in February of 1857, recommending 
me to that favorite son of Pennsylvania as a mem- 
ber of his cabinet. By return of mail I had a let- 
ter from Mr. Lincoln, announcing that my request 
had been received, but that he had already selected 



264 * LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

his New York member of the cabinet, meaning of 
course Mr. Seward. After Lincoln became Presi- 
dent, and after Judge Douglas had himself declared 
, in favor of prosecuting the war in maintenance of 
the Union, it is well known but for the untimely 
death of the great Illinois Senator in June 3, 1861, 
President Lincoln would have sought the first oc- 
casion to give him some distinguished position in 
connection with the Union Army. 

When Stonewall Jackson was accidentally killed 
by his own men on the 10th of May, 1863, in the 
early part of the war, I wrote a strong editorial for 
my Washington paper. The Daily Chronicle, speak- 
ing of the high qualities of that incomparable Con- 
federate soldier, and Mr. Lincoln wrote me a letter, 
thanking me for my unprompted justice to a gallant 
enemy. Another incident may be related in proof 
of Mr. Lincoln's generous appreciation of men 
who liad been his political opponents. In July of 
1861, when the called session of Congress met in 
Washington, a secret and successful movement 
induced the Kepublican caucus to elect another 
man in my place as Clerk of the House. But the 
next day President Lincoln, mortified at what he 
believed to be a most impolitic movement, called 
upon me with Schuyler Colfax, still living at South 
Bend, Ind., and told me that he had himself, 
personally called upon a number of United States 
Senators, and that I would the following morning 
be elected Secretary of the United States Senate, 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 265 

which was accordingly done. I held the place 
for about six years, but, valuable as it was, I then 
resigned it to vindicate my entire independence of 
the new masters of " the machine." 

All through this broad land patriotic Democrats, 
North and South, always found in President Lin- 
coln, not only a forgiving and generous, but a 
singularly magnanimous friend. I have related at 
another place how he pardoned Roger A. Pryor, 
and I might write many chapters reciting other in- 
stances of equal interest. To Republicans who 
have watched the course of this extraordinary 
man, it is unnecessary to say where he would be 
found this day. He longed to make peace with the 
South far in advance even of emancipation. 
Perhaps he may have carried this motive too far ; 
perhaps the fact of his having been born in Ken- 
tucky affected him; perhaps also his Southern 
connections had something to do with it; but when 
I recollect how he loved Hancock, how much he 
was affected by the splendor of Hancock's oppor- 
tune bravery on the 3d of July, 1863, and how 
rejoiced he was whenever a Southern man fought 
or spoke for the Union, I have no more doubt that 
he would be found for General Hancock in the 
present contest than I have where Charles Sumner ^ 
would be found, or Salmon P. Chase, or Stephen 
A. Douglas. The golden current that ran through 
Abraham Lincoln's whole character was concilia- 
tion. There was hardly a day that I was not con- 



266 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

strained to call upon him asking the exercise of 
this heavenly quality, and I can name no one case 
in which my appeals were refused. The Douglas 
and Lincoln Republicans, to whom I now address 
myself, have only to search their own hearts to 
answer the question, whether any single one of the 
leaders of the present Republican party imitates, 
either by word or deed, these magnificent attri- 
butes of the martyred President of the United 
States ? 

In Pennsylvania the whole organization of the 
Republican party is an iron ring rule; a ring in no 
one case, aided by a single man in whom Abraham 
Lincoln had the slightest confidence, and in nearly 
all cases, engineered by partisans that neither 
Ivnew him nor were known by him. In New 
York, if the RepubUcan leadership has more ability 
than here, it is none the less a selfish and personal 
combination. Elsewhere patronage, like the policy 
of the Republican party, is conducted and managed 
by a lot of pro-consuls, senatorial satraps, who own 
and distribute the offices of the general govern- 
ment to their special friends, and in many cases to 
their relatives. 

What is needed now is a man in the Presiden- 
tial office with hands as clean and heart as pure 
as those of Abraham Lincoln. Such a man is 
Winfield S. Hancock, the incorruptible soldier and 
the faithful citizen, and such is the man that the 
old Democracy who became Republicans under the 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 267 

example of Lincoln and Douglas, can rally to in all 
of the States of the Union, North and South. 

HANCOCK AND THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF THE NORTH. 

The present movement of the Republican advo- 
cates of General Garfield is . entirely against Gen. 
Hancock as a Democrat. That is his only sin in 
their eyes ; because of that all his unequalled record 
as a soldier, and all his services in saving the State 
in 1863 (according to the Republican admissions 
of that day), go for nothing. Let me examine this 
new and monstrous assumption. I will not answer 
it by saying that where the present Republican 
leaders are not the notorious advocates of rings 
and jobs, they are mainly old Native Americans 
and Know-No things ; that could be easily proved. 
But I will answer it by asking, what will become 
of the Republican party if the most brilliant ser- 
vices in war and peace are to be rebuked and re- 
jected because those who rendered these services 
have been and still are Democrats? Apply this 
rule to the present Republican party, and you at 
once prepare to drop out of your national column 
at least six of the free States, north and west. 
Make, as you are making, Hancock's only sin, the 
fact that he was born and stays a Democrat, and 
you lose in a short space of time Maine, New 
^Hampshire, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. 
Observe that all these States became Republican 
because of the innate hostility of the Northern 



268 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Democrats to the extension of slavery ; that, and 
the attack upon the liag, drove ahnost a million of • 
Democrats into the Republican* ranks, and without 
them the present Republican party would have 
become a mere corporal's guard, made up of office- 
holders, office-seekers, and bloody-shirt politicians. 
The question of slavery is out of the way forever. 
Even the slave-masters are at last rejoiced that the 
old man of the sea is off their shoulders. Then, 
what else is left ? Only the cry of hate of the 
South. Now men get tired of feeding on hate, 
especially when, as in this case, it is proved that 
the only effect of eternally hating the South is to 
eternally help Northern speculators in office, and 
fill the pockets of certain candidates with the 
bribes of the Credit Mobilier or the fees of the 
De Golyer lawyers. But there is another view 
of the future. Make it a sin for a gallant sol- 
dier to be a Democrat, all his education having 
been in that school,, and what becomes of his 
other Democratic companions-in-arms ? Do the 
present leaders of the Republican party think for 
a moment that Americans would submit to such 
insolence ? The mere hint of such a theory will 
deplete their ranks as if the plague had struck 
them. Are other thinking politicians stupid 
enough to hope that when all these Democrats 
consented to co-operate with the old Whigs and 
Know-Nothings during the war, they therefore 
bound themselves to submit to an ignorant and 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 269 

inferior rule for ever? The assault on General 
Hancock means precisely this. Let us see how 
it has worked already. The machinery of the 
Kepublican party, from Maine to Maryland, is 
almost exclusively in the hands of office-seeking 
or office-holding partisans. Look around you 
in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, 
Illinois and Indiana, and is it not so ? Of course, 
your paid politicians of to-day will say that men's 
feelings cannot be roused by dead issues, but the 
pride of a party, like the amour propre of a man, 
never dies, and is soon made healthy and alive ; 
and when a prejudice is made into a creed it is ul- 
timately resented. On the other hand, friendship 
survives. To be again on good terms with the 
South is not only wisdom but the best Democracy. 
It is also the best of sense ; it is commercial, reli- 
gious, and manly sense. The Democrats do not 
offer a serpent or a sword. Their candidate is a 
soldier, it is true, but he is also a forgiving, gener- 
ous and sincere statesman. If he hates anything, 
it is sectional hatred ; and if he loves anything, it 
is patriotic co-operation and oblivion to the evil 
past. 

THE REPUBLICANS OF THE SOUTH. 

Colonel George Williamson, of Louisiana, an in- 
timate personal friend of mine, for several years 
past co-operating with the Republican party, late 
Republican Minister to Central Africa, writes a 



270 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

public letter declining the Republican nomination 
for Congress in the Shreveport district, and de- 
clares his intention to support Hancock. He says, 
" Hancock represents the magnanimity and honor 
and military and civil elements of the North. And 
General Garfield, on the contrary, represents that 
political element of the North that lives upon hate 
of the South and glories in Northern sectional- 
ism, while it denounces and yet fosters Southern 
sectionalism." Colonel Williamson is one of the 
most accomplished and eloquent men I have ever 
known. He acted with the Republican party 
eight years ago, and gave it great power in north- 
ern Louisiana, and when Colonel Scott visited that 
region to secure support for the Texas and Pacific 
railroad in 1872, one of the most effective auxili- 
aries was this accomplished gentleman. A Re-- 
publican in the Southern country will not find it 
easy to resist the influence of such a nomination 
as that of General Hancock. Even a carpet-bagger 
will find his interest in supporting the patriotic 
side, but a gentleman like Colonel Williamson, 
born in the South, yet heartily sympathizing with 
the progressive spirit of the North, and full of 
anxiety to invite emigration, alike to Louisiana 
and Texas, (Shreveport is directly on the border 
of the latter), will find little to attract him in the 
cause of a candidate like General Garfield, whose 
only capital in trade is, that Hancock is a Demo- 
crat, and that the South is still not to be trusted. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 271 

THE GREELEY REPUBLICANS OF 1872. 

It is SO late in the day to resume the waving of 
the red flag of sectional discontent, that I think 
all sensible people regard the experiment pretty 
much as they would regard the experiment of 
awakening hostility to an Irishman, because he 
was not born in the United States. It has become 
so ridiculous as to be despised even by the hungry 
office-seeker. Now, the men who did so much to 
nominate General Garfield as the Republican can- 
didate for President at Chicago, were generally 
the Greeley men of 1872. This was a large and 
influential contingent of the Republican party. 
It included Mr. Whitelaw Reid, my old friend, 
General John Cochrane, Carl Schurz, Senator 
Fenton, of New York, G. A. Grow, Murat Hal- 
sted, and very many other eminent Republicans, 
most of them now, as I have said, for General 
Garfield, and all the unforgiving opponents of 
Grant. 

While one of the motives for these excellent 
persons falling ofl" from the Republican Party 
in 1872, was their dislike of General Grant, the 
chief point they made upon the country, the point 
with which they captured the South, was the as- 
sertion that the South was already reconstructed ; 
there was no opposition to the national law there, 
and that if we desired to prove ourselves a mag- 
nanimous people, then was the time to elect Mr. 
Greeley and to bring the South back in love and 



272 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

brotherhood to the national fireside. I was so 
much captivated by that idea myself, that if I had 
not acknowledged a superior obligation to General 
Grant; if I had not believed that he was entitled 
to the lasting gratitude of this whole people, of 
both sections, notwithstanding the fact that he 
had made blunders of administration, from which 
Washington himself was not saved, I should have 
gladly voted for Horace Greeley. Nothing in the 
character of that incomparable editor and unselfish 
patriot, attracted me more than the enthusiastic 
courage with which he gave up all his prejudices 
for the sake of his country, and cut loose from the 
corrupt jobbers of his own party. 

But now, eight years after, the whole current is 
changed, and these gentlemen are as busy waving 
the bloody flag as if they were working to earn 
high wages by their industry. Now the South is 
to be hunted, hooted and harrowed by all manner 
of scandals. A special outrage is to be invented 
every day. Failing to find any spots in the sunny 
character of Gen. Hancock, they turn out to find 
fresh fault with the South, which they worshiped 
with almost heathen idolatry in 1872. There 
would be no topic for their speeches, if the present 
Eepublican leaders could not indulge in denuncia- 
tion of Gen, Hancock because he is a Democrat, 
and in denunciations of the South, as a section still 
to be distrusted, although they were ready to re- 
ceive it with open arms eight years ago. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. • 273 

THE COLORED MEN OF THE UNITED STATES. 

It has been my good fortune to sustain the 
most intimate relations with the colored men of 
the United States for more than twenty years. 
There never has been an occasion when I have not 
been their staunch and stalwart friend. This one 
fact at least they will remember, and I must add 
that in the long run they have been considerate, 
kind and indulgent. But no class on the American 
soil owes less to the present leaders of the Republi- 
can party, and none have been treated worse by 
them. The men most forward in securing their 
freedom, Sumner, Greeley and Eli Thayer, all lived 
to co-operate with the Democratic party, and to- 
day there is no portion of the American people 
more interested in peace and reconciliation with 
the South. 

Two classes have suffered from the carpet-bag- 
gers, the colored and the white men of the late in- 
surrectionary states, and nothing in modern civili- 
zation has been such a curse to a great people as 
the horde of reckless men from the North, poured 
down upon the South at the close of the war. 
They had neither morals, manners, nor mercy. 
Who is there to-day that does not say reconstruc- 
tion has been retarded ten years by the adven- 
turers who plundered North and South Carolina, 
Virginia, Louisiana and Alabama ? The enormi- 
ties of these men turned even strong radicals into 
18 



274 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

sympathizers with the South after the war. It is 
possible such evils may have been provided as a 
punishment to the revolting states, but if this was 
so, these evils produced a counter current in the 
North and served to arouse profound commisera- 
tion for the plundered South. 

Meanwhile the Republican party, in the old 
Free States, fell into the hands, not of the Union 
soldiery, but of crafty and mercenary men, who, 
avoiding the dangers of the battle-field, filled their 
pockets from the plethoric treasury of the United 
States during the Rebellion. These men, in 
their careful provision for themselves, deliberately 
proceeded to put themselves into office every- 
where in the great municipalities, taking especial 
pains to exclude the highly cultivated men of the 
Republican party, and to give no chance for the 
new element, the colored voters, who stood cap in 
hand, at the door, waiting to be recognized. I 
think it could be established that if the ring- 
leaders of the Republican party, wherever they 
have control, could be turned out of the places 
they occupy, and these places could be filled by 
the intelligent colored men in the same communi- 
ties, the latter would prove to be the better custo- 
dians of the public interest. 

My good friend, George T. Downing, now at 
Albany, N, Y., for a long time resident in Wash- 
ington, one of the most intelligent men of his 
race, wrote a few days ago a letter to a conven- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 275 

tion of colored men at Trenton, N. J., in which 
he made this declaration ; " There was no special 
fealty due from his people to the Republican party. 
Necessity had been a potent element to induce the 
Republiean party to do what it had done." Then 
he cited the election by the Democrats, of J. C. 
Matthews, a colored man, to the Common Councils 
of Albany, N. Y., and his own selection as orator 
on Independence day in that city, and also the 
choice of a negro by the Democratic Mayor of Bos- 
ton to read the Declaration of Independence on 
the same day. 

I have another colored friend, an equally sen- 
sible man, Thomas Chester, a very prominent 
lawyer in New Orleans, who shares these senti- 
ments with George T. Downing. It is the mani- 
fest destiny of the colored race that they should 
rely on neither of the great parties. In their case 
undoubtedly, fair and frank division of their votes 
is the wisest policy. Why should they become 
the " Hewers of wood and drawers of water" to 
any single organization ? They vote as free citi- 
zens, and are free to choose, proving every day that 
their real political power is a weapon which they 
can use with great effect to command the respect 
of both parties. The man under God to whom 
they owed most, was Abraham Lincoln, when he 
signed the Proclamation of Emancipation, which 
made them all free, January 1, 1863. And if he 
were living to-day, he would with me plead for re- 



276 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

conciliation between the sections and for the fullest 
recognition of my colored friends. 

The great soldier of the first generation in this 
century, Andrew Jackson, hailed, as among his 
most loyal and reliable coadjutors, the free colored 
men who helped him to repel - the assault upon 
New Orleans, and I cannot doubt that Winfield S. 
Hancock will bear in mind this illustrious exam- 
ple. Their Emancipation has conquered a thou- 
sand obstacles ; it has made them the masters of 
their own future, and it will eventually command 
for them the respect of the Southern people, 
among whom the most of them were born. 

Gen. Hancock, whose course of life is in accord 
with this great example, is now a candidate of the 
party that embodies peace to all the sections. It 
is said, that he is also "the candidate of the men 
that he conquered." Could there be a higher 
proof of his own magnanimity than that the men 
he took prisoners should now be his followers? 
What nation has ever failed to forgive its erring 
children ? England, with the houses of York and 
Lancaster, and France, with her two Communes, 
are feeble copies of the splendid pardon extended 
by America to her Confederates. Nothing in 
ancient or modern times parallels that startling 
generosity. Abraham Lincoln * forgave them 
even while fighting against fate and freedom; 
for the reason that they were our own. Finally, 
when universal amnesty was added to universal 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 277 

suffrage, there could be no partial pardon and no 
divided equality. You cannot give a conditional 
liberty; you cannot proffer a part of human love. 
It is all in both cases. Hence we twain are bound 
into one. The egg of colored slavery is broken, 
never to be restored. The chains of white dis- 
qualification are melted, never to be reforged. 
Gettysburg preserved for us the entire and perfect 
chrysalis of free government; and for the Confede- 
rates, we have only to repeat: if they have sinned, 
they have suffered. Grievously have they sinned, 
fearfully have they suffered. They are still our 
brethren, still God's children ; and as He freely 
forgiveS; what blasphemy for us to refuse ? 

THE EDUCATION OF THE WAR AND THE BENEVOLENCE 

OF PEACE. 

The census is a rare magician, and it has come 
just in time to show the people of the Southern 
country that when they were beaten in their at- 
tempt to overthrow the Union they were saved 
a world of misery. It is unnecessary to revive 
the argument of an independent South, or the 
vision of a great sectional Republic based upon the 
institution of slavery. Enough to thank God for 
the present. I think even Jefferson Davis, in his 
cozy retreat at Beauvoir, Mississippi, or my old 
friend, R. M. T. Hunter, in his quiet home at 
Lloyd's^ in Virginia, or if he were living, the inde- 
fatigable J. B. De Bow, of the old Southern Re- 



278 • LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

view, would be quite content to see that the South 
have gained more by their loss than they would 
have gained by their victory^ had General Lee 
won the day at Gettysburg. 

And here comes the census, not so much to 
throw light upon old theories or to rebuke old 
predictions, as to illuminate the pathway to the 
great future that awaits all sections of this 
country, and none more than the South. The 
following wonderful summary tells part of the 
story : 

\^From the Baltimore American."] 

Wednesday, July 21, 1880. 

Mr. Bobert P. Porter, the political economist and statistician, has re- 
cently contributed from a tour of the Southern states a series of letters 
to the Bradstreets that have grouped in a small space an admirable pre- 
sentation of the great industrial and commercial facilities of that section. 
One conspicuous value of Mr. Porter's writings is that he is never 
excited ; he sets down the facts carefully gathered, and permits his 
readers to form their deductions from them, and his letters are always 
reliable as compared with those of correspondents who allow themselves 
to be swept off their balance by intense sympathy with their subject. 
He aims to show us what progress the South has made since the war, 
and also what rich possibilities for her people lie in the womb of the fu- 
ture. When Virginia has 58 per cent, of unimproved land. West Vir- 
ginia over 69 per cent., Tennessee 65 per cent, and North Carolina 75 
per cent., as is the case in those states, it is easy enough to see that what 
is needed for their further development, and the same thing is true of all 
Southern states, is the influx of labor and capital. How shall they be 
obtained? Well, immigration with money in its hand is tolerably sure 
to march into a country whose resources of wealth have been so far de- 
veloped by the previously resident population as to prove their vastness. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. . 279 

and that there is very much more money to be made out of them- 
Georgia has hundreds of thousands of acres of good soil for sale at 50 
cents an acre, and the financial condition of the state is so sound that its 
loans are quoted at 12 per cent, above par. The rich and comparatively 
unknown valleys that lie between the Blue Ridge and the lateral ranges 
of Virginia and North Carolina, carry gold, iron, copper and coal below 
the ground, while the surface land can hardly be excelled for grazing 
purposes, and the hill sides are clothed with'valuable timber. Tennessee 
has received within the last two years 7000 immigrants, who have not 
come as paupers, but as purchasers of homes. Arkansas has probably 
taken not less than 10,000 of the same class during that time, and Texas 
is likely to show by this census a population of fully 2,000,000. Stock- 
raising in Texas affords a magnificent field for enterprise and capital. 
The aggregate of Texas cattle is unknown to the best informed operator, 
but Gen. Walker, Supt. of the Census, is making special effort to discover 
the particulars in regard to this vast interest. No Southern interest, 
however, is attracting more attention than the endeavor to distribute 
cotton manufacturing through the cotton belt itself. The four million 
bales of cotton produced in the South last year run 12,500,000 spindles, 
which require nearly one thousand millions of dollars in buildings, 
machinery and working capital, and employ about 800,000 hands. Be- 
sides this total, the 700,000 spindles in the Southern states are compara- 
tively few, and the proportion of cotton which they annually consume 
is only a drop in the bucket. But we have heretofore shown the in- 
crease of profit in manufacturing where the cotton is grown, and it has 
been estimated by Mr. Porter that if the whole product was milled 
there it would save to the planter $50,000,000 yearly in transportation. 
There is plenty of iron in the Southern states, and it can be manufactured 
there as cheaply as in the North. The business has been taken up to 
some extent, and one expert has given the opinion that Tennessee may 
become another Pennsylvania if it will. By employing its laboring 
population in manufacturing enterprises, the South will not only return 
within its own borders the money of which it is now depleted, but it will 
have products to sell to other countries, and the more it has to sell, the 
more miles of railroads will be built, and the more certain and remu- 



280 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

nerative will be the home markets of its farmers, and the greater will be 
the ability of all its people to possess themselves of luxuries and com- 
forts drawn from every quarter of the globe. In Louisiana sugar culture 
is having a boom. In 1865, the state produced but 5000 tons, this year 
it has marketed 172,924 hogsheads of sugar and 274,440 barrels of 
molasses, for which nearly $19,000,000 was realized. Yet there is still 
much sugar land that is not cultivated. Forty-one mills for extracting 
oil from cotton seed are being worked in the cotton belt, and there is 
much money in this industry. 

We have not space to follow Mr. Parker through all the details o 
Southern progress and possibilities that he submits, but enough has been 
quoted to enforce the conviction that the day is breaking in that section. 
Its people are going to work in earnest, and in the new life that thev; 
are entering upon there must necessarily be an abolition of those 
political and social intolerances which have been their curse. Busy 
men have not time to brood over old sores, nurse dead issues, and foster 
political hatreds. 

Last September I addressed the people of 
Kansas at Lawrence City, on the Twenty-fourth 
Anniversary of the settlement of that wonderful 
town, and there ventured, long before any of the 
paid politicians could question my anxiety to re- 
store peace between the sections, to appeal to the 
Southern people as follows: 

Ah, gentlemen of the South, the great Jefferson would have builded 
better. Had he been here, he would never have allowed John C. Cal- 
houn's ideas to indoctrinate the South ; and if he had failed to stop the 
poison, he would have demanded, at the close of the civil war, and in 
the face of the generosity proffered to the South by the North, '' both 
hands full," that his people should not be held back in the new race 
for empire. He would point them to the gigantic growth of the North 
under free institutions and the abolition of human slavery, and he 
would have proclaimed from this part of his Louisiana purchase, that 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 2S1 

Kansas was the last and most prodigious product and proof of the 
justice and beneficence of his prophetic labors. He would say, in 
words of solemn warning, that whether the Southern Democratic 
leaders desired it or not, the fiat had gone forth, and they could no 
more resist the current than Canute could arrest the sea ; and then he 
would talk to the long-deluded masses of the South, and implore them 
to seize the golden opportunities all around them, and to act for them- 
selves and by themselves, without the reckless pilots that had led them 
into the storm, and had neither purpose nor capacity to lead them out. 
Such would be the master's voice were he alive to speak out. Let 
me, his humble follower and interpreter, add that there is still time 
" to recover arms." The South is full of wealth, genius, eloquence, 
and invention. The mighty elements that helped to make and fire the 
Revolution are not dead. Harness these elements to progress ; inspire 
them with Jeffersonian liberty ; and before the nineteenth century 
closes its doors, the old Southern States will be abreast of the new 
Western republics, and the next silver wedding of Kansas will find 
Texas divided into four empires, each as grand and potential as Kansas 
is at present, and from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, an athletic 
liberty as strong as that of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania to-day. 

It is astonishing how much farther hard old-time 
truth goes than ordinary figures of speech, and the 
tables teaching the philosophy of the census are 
far more convincing than any rhetoric. Several 
disenchantments appear. First, the old shiveshave 
worked better in freedom than in slavery. Next, 
the old slave-owners have got richer in freedom 
than they did in slavery ; next, the increase in the 
railroads of the South has been almost as rapid as 
the growth of railroads in the West; next, the pop- 
ulation has been astonishingly augmented in many 
quarters; next, popular education is spreading 



282 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

wider and staying more steadily; and I may add 
that Southern journahsm, judging by the newspa- 
pers that have come to me within the last year, 
exhibits an enterprise and originality that may 
well mxake Northern newspapers prepare for a 
rare Southern rivalship. 

Looking into the same mirror, I find that since 
the lifting away from the heart of the South of 
the terrible stone of slavery, there is as much 
change for the better as there was in the North in 
the days of its highest prosperity and improve- 
ment; society has improved in the condition of the 
poor whites ; there is an immense advance in the 
condition of the blacks; and greatest of all, we 
have the improvement that results from free inter- 
communication. Now there are no barriers be- 
tween the States ; now no traveler is j udged by his 
politics in the South ; and now even the carpet- 
bagger, if he behaves himself, can win respect in 
the extremest Southern communities. Such is 
briefly a part of tlie education of our civil war. 

GEORGE WASHINGTON" AND THE REBELS OF PENNSYL- 
VANIA. 

It is not difficult to judge how George Washing- 
ton would have treated the Confederates, had our 
civil war occurred durins: his life. There is a 
chapter in his life that meets this question. I have 
often believed that Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Seward, Ho- 
race Greeley, and Mr. Sumner, who, under the 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 283 

weight of their vast responsibilities, at last all forgot 
that they ever were partisans, and closed their lives 
at peace with all their people, had not only read 
in their reflecting moments, the solemn teachings 
of history as set forth in the splendid rhetoric of 
Edward Everett at Gettysburg, on the 19th of 
Novemljer, 1863, but that they had especially con- 
sidered the example of General Washington him- 
self, when he disposed of the celebrated Whisky 
Rebellion in Pennsylvania in 1794. His mode of 
treating the rebels of that period would have made 
it very certain, that earnest, and honest, and di- 
vinely loyal as he was, he would not have imitated 
the modern Republican partisans, either by wav- 
ing the "bloody flag in eighteen hundred and sixty- 
three, or insisting that it should still be the banner 
of his magnanimous party in the year of our Lord 
one thousand eight hundred and eighty. 

And at the present time, when the people of 
Pennsylvania are loudly called upon by men, most 
of whom were invisible in war and invincible in 
peace, to punish the people of the South, seventeen 
years after Abraham Lincoln, the martyred Presi- 
dent of the United States, had freely forgiven 
them, and fourteen years after the Congress of the 
United States had amnestied and clothed them with 
all their political rights, it may be useful to open 
that page of history which shows exactly what 
Washington did to the forefathers of the good 
people of certain counties in western Pennsylva- 



284: LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

nia, chiefly Westmoreland, Allegheny, Fayette^ 
Washington, and Bedford, eighty-six years ago. 

Their rebellion arose from opposition to the gov- 
ernment tax of fourpence on each gallon of whisky, 
which had been imposed by Congress as a war tax, 
or rather, to pay the expenses of the Ke volution. 
In these western counties the inhabitants were 
engaged in the manfacture and sale of whisky, and 
they resisted the tax not only by their votes and 
their voices, but to the death. It was for a time 
as bitter and almost as bloody as the previous war 
with the English, or the earlier wars with the 
Indians. The State was excited to its borders, 
and the whole country was seriously alarmed. 
The United States Marshal was obliged to flee for 
his life, and the house of John Neville, where he 
had been harbored, was burned, and a number 
were killed. There was no security for life, and 
an open defiance of law, in fact one wide reign of 
terror. 

What did the government do at that time ? Ke- 
membering that the offenders were our own citi- 
zens, that the law which they complained of had 
borne hardly upon them, that some of the officials 
were tyrannical, and that the proceeds of their 
whisky manufacture, w^as in fact at that time, the 
chief means of livelihood in all that section — mark 
how singularly these causes of the great rebellion 
in Pennsylvania eighty-six years ago, resembled 
the alleged excuses for the greater rebellion which 




Gen. George G. Meade. 




Gen. Robert E. Lee. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 287 

began in 1861 — remembering these things, the 
government did all it could to conciliate the inci- 
ters of tbe rebellion : Washington taking the 
lead. 

I quote from the last history of Pennsylvania, 
written by William Mason Cornell : " The laws 
were modified^ proclamations were issued and an 
amnesty offered to all, uselessly." Here again is 
the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, here is the source 
from which lie took the mercy, the magnanimity, 
the toleration, which he showed from the time he 
took the Presidentia.1 office ; which he breathed, as 
I heard him pronounce his first inaugural address, 
at the side of James Buchanan, on the 4th of 
March,1861 ; which he repeated in every subsequent 
public paper; which, with his last breath, like that 
Greater One who cned, '^Father, forgive them, 
they know not what they do," he proclaimed from 
the portals of the White House on the 11th of 
April, 1865. It seems as if he had observed the 
very methods and manner of George Washington 
in 1794. The stubbornness of the South between 
1860 and 1865, like the stubbornness of the rebels 
in western Pennsylvania in 1794, did not incense 
George Washington any more than the contumacy 
of the South incensed Abraham Lincoln. Like 
Washington, Lincoln put .himself in the very shoes 
of the men who were violating the law and taking 
the lives of their neighbors and friends. 

Let me still further quote from our historian : 



288 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

'^President Washington asked the co-operation of 
the governments of the neighboring States to quell 
the disturbance." Precisely as Abraham Lincoln 
did to quell the disturbance seventy years after. 
^^And in the autumn of that year (1794) 12,000 
men from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland 
and Virginia advanced upon the insurgents by way 
of Bedford and Cumberland." How like the 
joint selection of the battle-field of Gettysburg, 
whereon to decide our other civil war! Again 
says the historian, "General Lee, of Virginia, took 
the command. Under him was the Governor of 
Pennsylvania. This force soon caused them to 
succumb." 

How remarkable again the coincidence, that the 
father of Robert E. Lee should have come forward, 
under the orders of another Virginian, George 
Washington by name, and that the combined 
troops of four of the old revolutionary States 
should settle the original rebellion near the very 
battle-field where Robert E. Lee himself was over- 
whelmed by a citizen of Pennsylvania, when he, 
Lee, undertook to imitate the Pennsylvania rebels 
of 1794. General Henry Lee, who put down the 
Pennsylvania rebellion, was called '^Lighthorse 
Harry," and lived to March, 1818. He pronounced, 
by order of Congress, ihe great eulogy on George 
Washington after his death in 1799, and was the 
author of the sentence referring to the first Presi- 
dent and the savior of his country: "First in war, 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK 289 

first in peace, and first in the hearts of his coun- 
trymen." Whatever may be said about the fatal 
theory which led his great son, Robert Edmund 
Lee, to lead the Confederate forces, none can doubt 
that he was sincerely and religiously captivated by 
the States Rights dogma, nor can any one doubt 
that he deserved the affection and confidenjce of the 
people of the South, as he finally secured the re- 
spect of the people of the North. And there is 
little question that his son, who died at Lexington, 
Ya., October 12th, 1870, retreated with his shat- 
tered columns from Gettysburg and crossed the 
Potomac at Williamsport, Md., into his native 
State, Virginia, more than once reflected that 
almost on that very spot his father, the friend and 
companion of Washington, had suppressed a Penn- 
sylvania rebellion against the same government, 
seventy years before. 

But see how the historian concludes this mar- 
vellous similitude between our rebellion in Penn- 
sylvania and the rebellion of 1861 and 1865: 
*' Some of the leaders who were found, were taken 
to Philadelphia for trial. No hlood loas slied, and 
thus happily ended the lohishy rebellion !' The Re- 
publican partisans in the counties made addition- 
ally famous by this local revolt against the general 
government, are now calling upon the jDeople of 
Allegheny, and Westmoreland, and Somerset, and 
Bedford, and Washington, and Fayette, and Greene, 
and Armstrong, and Butler, and Cumberland, and 
19 



290 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Franklin, and Fulton, to join in November next 
in the punishment of the great soldier of Pennsyl- 
vania who saved them from an invasion only sur- 
passed by the insurrection of their own fathers! 
They will tell you, in their anxiety to make votes 
for Mr. Garfield, and in their eagerness to efface from 
his tainted record the dark blots placed upon his 
character by a Republican Congress and a Republi- 
can constituency, fastened there by the New York 
Tribune and other Journals, that in 1872 de- 
nounced General Garfield, as the very prince of 
congressional jobbers — they will tell you that Gen- 
eral Hancock deserves no more credit than the 
man they will call the " traitor Lee." Perhaps, 
then, while in the midst of one of these rhapsodies, 
some old Republican who wants to vote for Han- 
cock, like my friend. Senator Edward Cowan of 
Greensburg, will read them the curious chapter 
which I have spread before you, not alone to show 
that the father of Robert E. Lee put down the 
whisky insurrection begun by their fathers, but 
that under the advice of Washington their ances- 
tors were forgiven after having been first persuaded 
and argued with and almost promised rewards for 
their violation of law. 

PRESIDENT LINCOLN, ROGER A. PRYOR, AND GENERAL 

HANCOCK, 

Abraham Lincoln began early to treat the mis- 
guided authors of our civil war with mercy. His 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 291 

very first utterance at his inauguration, March 4, 
1861, closed with these immortal words: ''lam 
loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. 
We must not be enemies ; though passion may have 
strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. 
The mystic chords of memory, stretching from 
every battle-field and patriot grave, and every 
living heart and hearthstone all over this free land, 
will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when 
again touched, as surely they will be, by the better 
angels of our nature." 

And to show that he never forgot anybody, 
when he spoke at the great Philadelphia Sanitary 
Fair, Jane 16, 1864, he made this prediction, amid 
successive cheers for Grant, and Meade, and Han- 
cock: 

' " Grant is this evening, with General Meade and 
General Hanoock, and the brave officers and sol- 
diers with him, in a position from which he will 
never be dislodged until Kichmond is taken. And 
I have but one single proposition to put now, and 
perhaps I can best put it in the form of an interro- 
gation : if I shall discover that General Grant and 
the noble officers and men under him can be 
greatly facilitated in their work by the sudden 
pouring forth of men and assistance, will you give 
them to me ? Are you ready to march ? (cries of 
•yes,') then I say stand ready, for I am watching 
for the chance." 

Another singular incident of his retentive mem- 



292 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

orj and his characteristic inerc}^, is recalled to me 
by the current cry of Republican partisans, that 
the Southern people are never to be forgiven or 
trusted, and that the American people must retain 
the government in the hands of politicians who 
have proved themselves to be utterly unworthy of it. 
You see how he remembered General Hancock at 
the Sanitary Fair at Philadelphia, and how he 
classed him with Grant and Meade, nearly a year 
after the battle of Gettysburg, and you will not fail 
to contrast the tenacity of his regard for the young 
hero who decided the great struggle on the 3d of 
July, 1863, with the persistent abuse of that hero 
because he happens to be the candidate of a large 
portion of our citizens for President of the United 
States. I am also reminded by Mr. Lincoln's im- 
mortal example, of an incident brought back to me 
in all its freshness by a speech spoken a few days 
ago, by General Roger A. Pryor, an ex-confederate, 
now living in Brooklyn, New York. Taken in 
connection with Mr. Lincoln's conscientious 
mercy to the misguided men of the South, and his 
habit of never forgetting a favor, what I am about 
to relate serves to illustrate both these attributes. 
If it proves anything in reference to myself, it 
proves that, while it is universally known that I 
never had a thoua;lit after the outbreak of the re- 
bellion but that of punishment for the authors of 
that rebellion, yet when the civil strife was ended, 
I never had a thought that was not animated by 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 293 

an intense desire to bring all tlie confederate 
masses back to the family hearthstone. 

Late in February of 1865, while Grant was ad- 
vancing upon Richmond, my old friend, Washing- 
ton McLean, of the Qmohnxid^Xi Inquirer, came rush- 
ing into my rooms on Capitol Hill, full of excite- 
ment. He is still living, one of the most ardent 
and whole-hearted men I ever knew. He said, 
" I want you to do me a favor, and I know you 
will. Your old friend and mine, Roger A. Pryor, 
of Virginia, taken prisoner some days ago, is now 
confined in Fort Lafayette near New York, and I 
want you to go with me to see President Lincohi 
to secure his release, so that I may send word to 
his distressed family." The rapidity of this ex- 
traordinary request almost took my breath, but 
before I had time to expostulate, McLean hurried 
me into a carriage waiting at the door and drove 
rapidly towards the White House. Then I said 
to him, " Do you know what you are doing ? You 
are asking me to go to the President to demand 
the release of a violent Confederate, Avho is said to 
be the first man who fired from Charleston harbor 
upon our flag on Fort Sumter, and who was per- 
haps the most resolute of all the enemies of the 
government." "Yes," he replied, "and your old 
associate on the organ of the Democratic party of 
the nation in Washington, when we were all 
Democrats together, and as you know, one of the 
best men alive, with all his extreme Southern 



294 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

opinions." By this time we had reached the 
President's, and hurried up stairs to his room front- 
ing the Potomac, which I found, as usual, crowded 
with people. But Mr. Lincoln was always more 
than kind to me, and we soon obtained an audi- 
ence. 

First joking w^ith McLean because he was so 
earnest a Democratic editor, Mr. Lincoln then 
listened to my appeal for General Pryor, I still 
see his expression and the humorous sparkle of his 
eye as I told my story. Then pausing he said, '' I 
have a kindly recollection of Roger A. Pryor. He 
is the man who, when a company of Pennsylvania 
volunteers were taken prisoners at Petersburg, 
Virginia, (Pryor then lived at Petersburg), found 
them almost starving on the streets and took them 
home, and gave them, not only a hearty breakfast, 
but literally swept his house clean to make them 
comfortable, and I think I have here a little mem- 
orandum to that effect signed by these Pennsyl- 
vania boys." And so turning around, he took 
from his j)igeon-hole a paper testifying to this flxct, 
and also urging that General Pryor's kindness 
should never be forgotten by the American Govern- 
ment. 

This proves the fidelity of Abraham Lincoln's 
gratitude and good memory. He then gave me a 
card to the commandant of Fort Lafayette in New 
York harbor, Colonel Burke, asking him to release 
the Confederate General Pryor, who would report 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 295 

to his friend Col. Forney on Capitol Hill. And 
McLean rushed off to New York by the next train, 
returning to Washington the subsequent evening 
with Roger A. Pryor on his arm, who came to my 
house on Capitol Hill and remained with me as 
my guest for more than a month, even down to 
the fall of Richmond. 

There was a great deal of opposition to this pe- 
culiar pardon of the President, in some quarters, 
coming from the men who then, as now, tried to 
show their patriotism by proclaiming their unfor- 
giveness and hatred of the South. But the Presi- 
dent stood firm to the last, and General Pryor re- 
mained with me until he found it convenient to 
return to his home. At parting, he showed much 
emotion, and declared that while he never would 
forget all the kindness that had been shown to 
him, I would live to see the day when he would 
prove that he would labor as hard to re-unite the 
country and restore kindly relations in the North 
and South as he had fought hard to separate them. 
Nobly has Pryor kept his faith. The last evidence 
of it is the speech that I hold in my hand, uttered 
a few days ago, early in July, 1880, from which I 
take this remarkable extract : 

''Hancock was not the preference of the Southern people for Presi- 
dent. Their choice — unanimous and enthusiastic — was Bayard, of 
Delaware. How, then, came the Southern delegates to proffer Han- 
cock as the candidate of the Democracy? I will tell you, and mark 
well the sijjnificance of the fact: Since the close of the war the Kepub- 



296 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

lican party in the North, for purposes of party aggrandizement, have 
persisted contrary to fact, contrary to truth, in representing the South- 
ern people as enemies still of the Union, and as cherishing yet the ex- 
ploded dogma of secession as a tenet of the States Eights creed. In vain 
have the Southern people endeavored to vindicate their patriotism by 
protestation and acts of loyal devotion to the Union. Hitherto, in 
every election, it has sufficed for the defeat of the Democracy that the 
' bloody shirt ' was waved by stalwart arms, and fabricated ' outrages ' 
propagated by Eepublican papers. So, at Cincinnati, the Southern 
delegates said: 

' You may impute to us hostility to the Union, but we will refute the 
calamnious accusation by setting as sentinel over the Union the vigilant 
and unconquerable hero of the Union. You may impute to us the mis- 
chievous heresy of State sovereignty, involving the right of secession. 
Now, we will disprove the charge by nominating for the Presidency 
a man educated by the General Government, and taught the supremacy 
of the Nation as the first and fundamental rule of political faith ; a man 
who holds his commission from the Federal Government ; who gets his 
subsistence from the Federal Government, for whom no career is open 
but in the service of the Federal Government, who knew no other ob- 
ject of fealty than the Federal flag — a man, in short, whose every interest 
I inds him to the support of the Union by the most intimate and indis- 
putable ties.' ' You say we are still unreconciled to the North, and 
that in our hearts still burns the secret flame of sectional animosity ; 
then, to repel the reproach, we take to our bosoms the man from Avhom 
we sustained the severest blows in our Confederate struggle — the man 
who arrested our retreat at Williamsburg ; who checked our pursuit at 
Fraser's Farm ; who hurled our assaulting columns from the heights of 
Gettysburg ; who drenched the soil of the South with the best blood of 
the South ; the man who smote our ill-starred Confederacy to the 
ground.'" 

I repeat the question, How long is this bloody 
sliirt to bo waved ; how long are the millions of 
Southern people to be distrusted ; how long shall 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 297 

the corrupt politicians in the North be kept in 
power by this fiendish hatred of your own brothers? 
As 1 said before, Mr. Lincoln began to forgive the 
Southern people in the midst of their sins, and 
even as he died, he died with Christ-like pardon 
for them on his lips, and when he had passed 
away, the Kepublican party of the United States, 
when it was led by statesmen and inspired by 
patriots, incorporated into the Constitution those 
great practical guarantees, not only that the slave 
should be free, not only that the freedman should 
vote, but that the so-called rebels should be for- 
given, their property restored to them and their 
right to vote in all our elections secured ; in other 
words, universal suffrage with universal amnesty. 
And now when the South gives the pledge, in the 
words of Koger A. Pry or himself, a forgiven man 
by the President of the United States, that pledge 
made in the person of the soldier who by the ad- 
mission of the Kepublican leaders themselves 
saved the Republic in the extremest peril, the 
Southern people are still to be hounded on by the 
declaration that the South shall never be trusted ; 
it is not surprising that the great body of the 
humane people of the United States should rise 
against this savage exhibition of party malevolence, 
and, worse than that, unpatriotic contempt for the 
great example of Lincoln and the solemn covenant 
of the Constitution of the United States ! 



29 S LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE CONQUERED CONFEDERATES. 

THIS is the moment when every kind word 
spoken and every good action done by the peo- 
ple of the North and South respectively should 
be cherished. Already a new civil war, so far as the 
revival of sectional animosities is concerned, has 
been determined upon by the Republican leaders, 
and if there is a moderate and thoughtful patriot 
in these United States to-day, he should be roused 
to reprobation of the inhuman spectacle. It is clear 
that every other question will be subordinated by 
the violent men who still hold possession of the Re- 
publican party in order that they may keep them- 
selves in office. Not the least surprising feature 
of this conspiracy to re-light the fires of hatred 
between the States is the activity in it of many of 
the organizers of the movement to make Horace 
Greeley President in 1872. 

The platform of these men eight years ago was 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK, 299 

that the South had suffered enough and had been 
punished enough, and ought to be brought back 
into the Union. Mr. Greeley, himself, directly 
after the peace of 1865, became the voluntary in- 
strument of fraternal relations. The dogmatic, 
passionate and apparently proscriptive founder of 
the Neio Yorh Tribu7ie, — the man who did more 
than any other man in the nation to arouse the 
malignities of the war — gradually, in the face of 
the overthrow of the conflict, mollified all his 
extreme views, and when Jefferson Davis was im- 
prisoned in Fortress Monroe, Horace Greeley 
startled the nation by proffering himself as the 
leading bail of Jefferson Davis in May, 1867. 

Thousands of Kepublicans supported him in 
1872 as the candidate of the party of which Mr. 
Davis was in fact the Southern chief, and hundreds 
of Kepublican leaders were as extreme in their de- 
mands for Southern forgiveness and rehabilitation 
as Greeley himself. Now the New York Tribune 
and most of these men are on the other side. 
True, they all had personal hostilities against Gen- 
eral Grant in 1872, as they had in 1880, but the 
keynote of the contest of 1872 was Southern for- 
giveness. Their movement was held forth to the 
North as the best manifestation of Christian char- 
ity, and there is no page of political history, at 
once more instructive and curious, than the man- 
ner in which hundreds of Kepublican leaders, to 
make votes for Horace Greeley, pledged themselves 



300 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

to perpetual allegiance to the South. Those who 
were as soft and gentle as cooing doves when 
they spoke of our Southern countrymen are as 
violent as wild animals to-day. 

In 1872 it was a Kepublican soldier that they 
hunted down in their preference for Horace Greeley. 
It was to destroy a RepubUcan soldier that they 
joined the Democratic party. Now this very Dem- 
ocratic party becomes to them a terror, and the 
Democratic soldier who carries the flag of the 
Union is proclaimed the instrument and symbol of 
a new rebellion, the chief of a movement pledged 
to overthrow all the covenants of peace ! 

It would be inconceivable if the American peo- 
ple, North and South, who witnessed this extra- 
ordinary scene, should not resent the actors in it 
with indignation and dignity in November next. 
Long before Mr. Greeley unfurled the white flag 
of reconciliation, Abraham Lincoln, even two days 
before his death, made known to the world his sin- 
cere desire to pardon and bring back our offend- 
ing brethren. And in the same month, not much 
more than a week after, General Grant, so far from 
being inflamed by a spirit of revenge over the fate 
of the martyred President, carried into legal effect 
the great act of forgiveness, by making a magnani- 
mous treaty with Robert E. Lee, the Confederate 
Commander-in-chief. Now, seventeen years after 
Gettysburg, fifteen years since Lincoln's death and 
Grant's treaty with Lee, eight years since thou- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 301 

sands of Republicans voted for Horace Greeley as 
the Democratic candidate for President on the 
basis of eternal reconciliation, we have the great 
Republican party formed in battle array, not only 
under what is vulgarly called "the bloody flag," 
but stimulated by more than one hundred thou- 
sand office-holders into a new war of sections, to 
force an Ohio politician, blackened all over with 
charges upon his public and private character by 
his own party, into the Presidency. 

These unaccountable changes of sentiment, by a 
party which claims to have put down the war, 
and to have forgiven the authors of the war, 
and to have crystalized into the Constitution the 
two great guarantees, universal amnesty and uni- 
versal suffrage, is in morals as much a violation of 
faith as in law repudiation of a private or public 
debt would be a crime. 

THE CLOSE OF THE WAR IN THE SOUTHWEST. 

A very interesting incident, showing how this 
spirit of conciliation and magnanimity pervaded 
the very air after the close of the war in 
1865, is related in a contribution made by Lieu- 
tenant-General Richard Taylor, son of President 
Zachary Taylor, printed in the Philadelphia 
Times, before his death, in April, 1879. He was in 
command of a Confederate detachment when in- 
telligence of Lee's surrender reached him. Gen- 
eral Canby, who afterwards lost his life in an 



302 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Indian ambuscade in the Rocky Mountains, com- 
manded the Union armies in the Southwest, and 
had advanced up the eastern shore of Mobile Bay 
and invested Spanish Fort and Blakely, two im- 
portant Confederate works in that quarter. Gen- 
eral Richard Taylor, the Confederate commander, 
had known Canby before, and the Union Admiral, 
James Palmer, both old friends of mine. A truce 
of two days was declared, to await intelligence 
from the North in regard to the collapse of the 
Confederacy. Now hear what Taylor said of this 
affair : 

" We then joined the throng of officers, and although every one pre- 
sent felt a deep conviction that the last hour of the sad struggle ap- 
proached, no allusion was made to it. Subjects awakening memories of 
the past, when all were sons of a loved, united country, were, as by the 
natural selection of good breeding, chosen. A bountiful luncheon was 
soon spread, and 1 was invited to partake of pate, champagne frappe, 
and other 'delights,' which to me had long been as lost arts. As we 
took our seats, at table, a military band in attendance commenced play- 
ing ' Hail Columbia.' Excusing himself. General Canby walked to the 
door. The music ceased for a moment, and then the strain of ' Dixey ' 
was heard. Old Froissart records no gentler act of ' courtesie.' Warmly 
thanking General Canby for his delicate consideration, I asked for 
'Hail Columbia,' and proposed we should unite in the hope that our 
Columbia would soon be, once more, a happy land. This and other 
kindred sentiments were duly honored in '/rappe,' and after much 
pleasant intercourse, the party separated." 

This interesting incident occurred in the May 
of 1865, more than fifteen years ago. General 
Canby, whose friendship I had the honor to share 
during his splendid life, treated the Confederates 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 303 

not only like a soldier, but like his fellow country- 
men. He remembered what Mr. Lincoln had said 
in 1863 at Gettysburg, what he had said three 
days before he was assassinated, what General 
Grant had pledged himself to in his April treaty 
with General Lee, and inspired by these examples, 
observe how he treated the people of Alabama and 
Mississippi at that time in. a most deplorable con- 
dition. Writes General Taylor: "The waste of 
war had stripped large areas of the necessaries of 
life. In view of this, I suggested to General Can by 
that his troops, sent to the interior, should be 
limited to the number required for the preservation 
of order, and be stationed at points where supplies 
were more abundant. That trade would soon be 
established between soldiers and people, furnishing 
the latter with currency — of which they were 
destitute — and friendly relations promoted. These 
suggestions were adopted, and a day or two there- 
after, at Meridian, a note was received from 
General Canby, inclosing copies of orders to Gen- 
erals Granger and Steele, commanding army corps, 
by which it appeared these officers were directed 
to call on me for and conform to advice relative to 
movements of their troops. Strange, indeed, must 
such confidence appear to statesmen of the ' bloody 
shirt' persuasion. Li due time. Federal-staff 
officers reached my camp. The men were paroled 
and sent home, public property was turned over 
and receipted for^ and this as orderly and quietly 



304 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

as in the time of peace between officers of the same 
service. 

What, in the meanwhile, have the South- 
ern people done that the whole North shall now 
turn upon them as if they were so many savages ? 
In these days of universal brotherhood, when every 
part of our country is prosperous, a new gospel is 
preached, chiefly by partisans, who, to use the 
words of General Taylor, '^ never were within the 
sound of a gun " during the civil war. They de- 
clare that our countrymen of* the South are not 
yet fit to be admitted into their share of the Gov- 
ernment. Every American citizen will answer 
this question for himself, and none more emphati- 
cally than the Union men who fought against 
General Taylor and his soldiers. He concludes : 

" What years of discord, bitterness, injustice and loss would not our 
country have been spared, had the wounds of war been healed * by first 
intention ' under the tender ministrations of the hands that fought the 
battles ! But the task was allotted to ambitious partisans, most of 
whom had not heard the sound of a gun. As of old, the lion and the 
bear fight openly and sturdily — the stealthy fox carries ofi" the prize." 

NATIONAL UNION FOR THE PEACE AND PROSPERITY OF 
THE NATION, AND FOR AN ENDLESS POSTERITY. 

During the war for the preservation of the Union, 
men of all parties in the North came together to 
support the Government. In the South men ol 
all parties came together to subvert the Govern- 
ment. The latter failed after fierce effort. The 
first act of the rescued Government was to forgive 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 305 

every offender and to enfranchise every native alien. 
To the slave it gave liberty ; to the Confederate is 
gave pardon. Nothing strengthened our nation so 
much abroad as this double revelation, or rather 
the humanity of the liberty and the magnanimity 
of the forgiveness. Nothing startled the foreign 
tyrant or lifted up the foreign serf like this God- 
like spectacle. Following Washington's great ex- 
ample, Mr. Lincoln preached pardon during all his 
life, and preached pardon at his death. He did 
not grant the ballot with as much readiness as he 
pardoned the Confederate ; but when he gave the 
one and forgave the other, he did what he knew 
would stand through all time. Had he not done 
both, we should now be living in the midst of a 
ceaseless civil conflict, conducted on the one hand 
by warlike, ingenious and desperate whites, and 
harassed on the other by keeping in slavery four 
millions of blacks full of equal distrust and 
greater hatred of our miscalled Kepublic. And 
now that both sides are benefited by the general 
rescue and the universal reconciliation which came 
from all the best qualities of our nature, alike in 
arms and arbitration, alike in the conflict of the 
field and the Congress of the country, we must 
permanently unite for peace. 

Let all parties unite for peace. As the Demo- 
crats flew to the Republican standard in the hour 
of the country's trial, now let Republicans fly to 
the Democratic standard in the hour of the coun- 
20 



306 LIFE AND PUBLIC CABEER OF 

try's conciliation. How much more ennobling the 
inspiration of the last invocation than • the stimu- 
lant of the first! How much more compensation in 
a great people gathering around their own fire-side, 
forgiving their own family quarrels, and simply 
remembering that they are kindred and friends, 
than to contend and threaten in conventions and 
Congress, to spread disaffection through the press, 
and to assail motives and invent calumnies! The 
text of the hour that is sure to be preached with 
most effect, to be listened to with most attention, 
is that at the head of this page : National union for 
the sake of peace, for the sake of prosperity, and 
for the sake of an endless posterity. . 

PRESEIJT POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE SOUTH. 

While this volume was going to press, I was 
called upon by my long absent friend, Thomas J. 
Mackey, at present Judge of the Sixth Circuit of 
South Carolina, who has voted the Republican 
ticket since the candidacy of Fremont in 3856, and 
for most of the Republican candidates from that day 
to this, and is now openly in the field for General 
Winfield S. Hancock. After ray congratulations at 
meeting him and his son, Mr. Beckford Mackey, 
in reply to my question as to the present political 
condition of the South, he spoke as follows : 

The campaign has begun in South Carolina, or 
rather I should say it is continuing, for since 1876, 
when the state was redeemed from long misgovern- 



^ WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 307 

ment, under the benign leadership of Wade 
Hampton, an organized effort has been continually 
made to assimilate the colored man to the Demo- 
cracy by a just and equal administration of the 
laws, and by commending the government of the 
state to him through a system of low taxes and a 
faithful execution of all public trust. To-day 
throughout the thirty-four thousand square miles 
of territory embraced within the limits of the state, 
the law is keeping watch, a silent and sleepless 
sentinel, over the person of the humblest negro. 
The colored population of South Carolina constitute 
as orderly and honest a body of laborers as exists 
in any quarter of the globe, and in proportion to 
numbers commit fewer crimes than any other in- 
dustrial class of w^hich I am informed. 

The nomination of General Hancock has been 
followed by a very striking expansion of sentiment 
in my state on the part of the whites. It has 
furled the Confederate banner forever within the 
limits of South Carolina. 

As an evidence of this, I note the fact that a 
few weeks ago the inhabitants of the county of 
Newbury assembled to dedicate a monument to 
the Confederate dead who fell in organizations sent 
from that county. The monument consisted of a 
tall marble shaft on which the names of some 
twenty-eight hundred dead Confederate soldiers 
were inscribed. There were at least ten thousand 
ex-Confederates from various parts of the state 



308 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

present at the dedication, and when the ceremonies 
closed, the vast assemblage made the welkin ring 
with hurrahs for Hancock — the great Union soldier 
before the deadly fire of whose invincible corps 
many of those whom our citizenship had assembled 
to honor fell in battle. Those hurrahs came from 
the heart, for every peojDle is sincere at the graves 
of their dead. There were at least fifty United 
States flags encircling the monument during the 
dedication. 

As another evidence of this expansion, I note 
the fact that the Fourth of July was celebrated 
universally by the white people in South Carolina 
in the present year, for the first time since the 
year 1860, by the ringing of bells and the firing of 
cannon. All classes, ages, sexes and races partici- 
pating, white and colored intermingling and par- 
taking together of a sort of national sacrament ad- 
ministered by one who had shed his blood upon 
the altar of the Union, and might well preside as 
a high priest at the office of national reconciliation. 
It is in view of this sentiment of returning devo- 
tion to the Union specially inspired by General 
Hancock's nomination, that I welcome his candi- 
dacy. As an ex-Confederate soldier who served 
four years at the front in obedience to the false 
political theory of my State, and as an earnest 
Republican, I regard the nomination of General 
Hancock as the most benign incident that has 
occurred since the war, as I know his election will 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 309 

be effectual in restoring the concord to American 
citizens by binding them together in a common 
devotion to the Union. 

As a further illustration of the change which 
that nomination has effected, I refer to the fact 
that since the war South Carolinians generally 
were in the habit of referring to the United States 
troops stationed in the State as " Yankee soldiers/' 
or "Federals." But a few weeks since, while I 
was standing in a group of ex-Confederates at Co- 
lumbia, a detachment of United States soldiers 
passed, and an ex-Confederate remarked, " There 
go some of our soldiers." 

It is a mistake to suppose that the colored peo- 
ple of South Carolina follow the race line any 
longer in their political classification. The colored 
man, like the great body of the hand-workers of 
the world, does not control his conduct by abstract 
propositions. Like the greyhound, he runs by 
sight, and is influenced in his judgment of parties 
by visible results. The Republican administra- 
tion of Governor Chamberlain was overthrown in 
1876, not by the Democratic party proper, but by 
the union of good and true men of all parties and 
races who sought reform in the administration of 
the governme.nt. Governor Chamberlain was a 
man of splendid intellect and unsurpassed culture, 
and in my judgment an unsullied and honorable 
chief magistrate^. But all of his efforts directed 
on his part to effect reform in the administration 



310 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

of the State were paralyzed by the baser element 
of the Republican party. And hence the com- 
bined movement to overthrow the power of that 
political organization in South Carolina. The 
Democracy prepared for the union of the better 
elements of the Republican party by adopting a 
platform, inspired by Wade Hampton, which is 
distinctively Republican, its first article being as 
follows : " We accept in perfect good faith the 
Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend- 
ments to the Constitution of the United States, 
accepting and standing upon them, we turn from 
the settled and final past to tlie great living 
and momentous issues of the present and the 
future." 

Under the benign leadership of Hampton, that 
platform and principle have been translated into 
action in the practical government of the State. 
There are six hundred and fifteen more school- 
houses for colored people in South Carolina than 
there were in 1876, while the taxes have been re- 
duced seventy per cent., and the colored agricul- 
tural laborers who received but seven dollars per 
month and rations in 1876, now get from twelve 
to fourteen dollars per month with much better 
rations. 

South Carolina to-day presents Hampton, the 
fearless defender of the adjudicated title of Kel- 
logg, the Republican Senator from Louisiana, the 
man who reported the bill at the recent session of 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 311 

Congress appropriating fifty thousand dollars to the 
execution of a map of Gettysburg, showing the 
position of every command on that memorable 
field, the symbol of her lojyalty and the standard 
of her civilization. The North stands to-day on 
the mountain ranges of civilization: we of the 
South have long been in the valleys, but we are 
climbing up, and the stalwart arm of Hancock will 
aid in lifting our people to a higher plane. 

CONCILIATION IS VICTORY, AND ALL SUBSTANTIAL 
INTERESTS ARE FOR CONCILIATION. 

The prediction of Jay Gould to Mr. Thomas 
Cornell, of Delaware Co., N. Y., that Hancock and 
English will certainly be elected, in November, is 
not the prophecy of an over-sanguine politician, 
but the result of the careful reflection of a cool and 
sagacious man of business. 

Mr. Gould controls a continual line of Continen- 
tal railway, and a vast Atlantic cable, and apart 
from all other considerations he reads the future 
with a commercial eye, and sees how utterly im- 
possible it is to establish an imaginary line between 
two sections, and between the respective States 
of a great people, bound together by all other 
interests, practical, domestic, religious, and so- 
cial. 

During the war the North was united to save 
the country, the South was united to divide the 
country, but now North and South see their true 



312 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

interests in honest harmony. They can no more 
be kept asunder than two old friends, bitterly 
parted, and after all brought together by the re- 
newal of their origmal and undying ties. 

Jay Gould is worth millions of money, and 
thousands are dependent upon him ; people who 
own his investments, people who work in his various 
enterprises, people who are connected with the de- 
velopment of our outlying territories, and many 
other co-relative institutions and interests. It re- 
quires no inspiration to anticipate where all other 
men equally practical, will be found before th© 
close of this controversy. What motive, for in^ 
stance, can a great city like Philadelphia have for 
the encouragement of useless sectional alienations? 
What municipal advantages can come to us of 
Philadelphia by prolonging the calamitous rule 
under which this municipality has suffered for the 
last fifteen or twenty years ? 

On the other hand, apart from such local rea- 
sons, why should not Philadelphia invite back to 
her great colleges and to her great merchants that 
Southern patronage which she enjoyed before the 
Civil War? Why should Philadelphia alone, of 
the great cities of the North, allow herself to 
be controlled by trading politicians? New York, 
Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, and St. Louis, are all 
under cosmopolitan influences. And there is no 
reason why Philadelphia should not revert to her 
imperial position before duty and inclination con- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 313 

strained her ta resort to those extreme measures 
which converted that old Whig city into a Repub- 
lican stronghold. There is not a merchant or 
manufacturer in Philadelphia who is not more or 
less directly concerned in the restoration of con- 
fidence and friendship between the North and 
South. 

How, in view of such a philosophy as this, how 
contemptible appear the small passions of the 
small politicians, of the small localities ! It is 
such facts as these that will decide the vigorous 
men of the North to withhold their contributions 
to the present managers of the RepubHcan 
party. 

The financial institutions of the United States 
are primarily for conciliation. Up to within a 
few years they were led to believe that they must 
pay large bounties to maintain a certain political 
party, because the other party was charged with 
hostility to the present financial management of 
the government. But these far-seeing men now 
understand that when every other branch of 
business, when science, and religion, and great in- 
dustries, and tremendous railroad corporations, are 
united in believing that the true business of 
the future can best be controlled by conciliatory 
measures, they, themselves, will hesitate before 
allowing their money to be used to promote the 
interests of sectional politicians. And the place- 
men themselves, taxed to death by the organiza- 



314 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

tions of the party to which they belong, encouraged 
by the civil service promise of President Hayes, 
will learn at least consideration from the incoming 
power by frankly refusing to make contributions 
to a beaten party. 

Finally, conciliation is the fashion. Twenty 
years ago, what is called loyalty was the fashion 
in the North, but to-day peace and friendship are 
the great elements of universal acceptance. And 
peace and friendship with our own people in dif- 
ferent States are the true harbingers of future 
prosperity. It will be perceived that in this pre- 
sentation of the case, I leave entirely out of the 
question the military element, the men who fought 
down the Civil War at Gettysburg, and afterwards 
aided General Grant to finish it at Richmond. 

THE CLERGY AND CONCILIATION. 

There is a Baptist clergyman in Philadelphia, 
an original Democrat, who preached forty years 
ago in Richmond, Virginia. He was born in Ver- 
mont in 1810, and like thousands of hio school 
became a Republican when the civil war broke 
out. His wonderful eloquence and disinterested 
example did incalculable service to the Republican 
party. This interesting man recognizes General 
Hancock as the great political missionary of 
conciliation, and. Republican as he is, regards 
peace between the sections as the very highest 
evangelism. He sees the union of the churches, 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 315 

the union of the schools, the union of the rail- 
roads, the union of great boards of trade, the 
union of transportation companies, and express 
companies, as the resistless mission that must com- 
pel the union of pulpits and the union of schools. 

His beautiful temple in the city of Philadelphia, 
the Free Baptist Church, on Broad street, near 
Brown, is crowded every Sabbath and several 
evenings during the week ; and his last sermon on 
the Divine Democracy is a general elucidation of 
his present position. The text is from chapter 
twenty of St. Matthew, verses 26, 27, 28, and 30, 
viz : " Whoever will be great among you let him 
be your minister. And whoever will be chief 
among you let him be your servant. Even as the 
Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to 
minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. 
And so they departed from Jericho, a great multi- 
tude following him." 

The individual example of Dr. Magoon, apart 
from his courageous connection with the present 
movement for the reconciliation of the sections, is 
worth relating. He is now alone in the world, 
with the exception of the widow of his son, and 
her child. Originally, a Vermont bricklayer, he 
recalls his rough beginning by the first brick which 
he laid, placed before him, on his table, as an ink- 
stand, which he uses when he writes his sermons. 
His active and frugal life leaves him, at seventy 
years of age, in fine health, with a competency. 



316 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

His large collection of water-colors, painted by the 
famous artist Richards, of Germantown, Philadel- 
phia, is among the finest of its kind in the world, 
mostly marine pieces. His theological library, 
including volumes in several languages, and his 
miscellaneous library, have all been distributed, 
the art treasures to General Di Cesnola's Great 
Art Gallery in Central Park, New York ; his theo- 
logical library to Cardinal McCloskey, of New 
York, who, although a Catholic, is the personal 
friend of the Protestant priest; and his other col- 
lections to his Alma Mater, the College of Roches- 
ter, N. Y. ; while $5000 is given to found a schol- 
arship at Yassar, of which he is a trustee. 

This distribution was made in obedience to the 
request of his accomplished son, Frank, who died, 
in 1879, at an early age, and who asked his father 
to make disposition of his property before he him- 
self was called away ; in other words, to adminis- 
ter on his own estate. 

No man could have been more earnest, during 
the war, in favor of freedom, than Dr. Magoon ; 
and none is more earnest in promoting the kindest 
feelings between the people of the North and 
South. It is here that his influence will be most 
effective. Nothing, during the war, was more 
natural than ardor in the pulpit. North and South; 
yet it must be admitted that nothing excited so 
much ill-feeling. The clergy, on both sides, were 
often violent and vituperative. Here history 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 317 

repeated itself, because this violence and vitupera- 
tion became contagious, frequently converting 
heretofore fraternal congregations into political 
conclaves. But now, that the real disturbers of 
public opinion, the political managers. North and 
South, not only themselves called a halt, but from 
Jefferson Davis, on the one side, to the Rev. 
Henry Ward Beecher, on the other, recoil, with 
something like regret from their extreme utter- 
ances ten and fifteen years ago, it would be a 
painful phenomenon if our religious teachers did 
not also unite in a happy oblivion to the bitter 
past. 

Hence, such men as the Rev. Dr. Magoon are 
found in every commmunity. It seems more 
difficult, however, for some who should be the 
apostles of peace to preach methods of forgive- 
ness. 

The injuries of the war in the South still stir 
the blood of many of the theologians, precisely as 
the savage memories of slavery irritate the reli- 
gious leaders of the North ; and it happens that, 
on more than one occasion, when the statesman 
sees the light of truth, and finds that, in order to 
judge for the country, he must take into considera- 
tion the interests, as well as the prejudices, of 
others, we sometimes realize that many clergymen 
still nurse their wrath to keep it warm. But 
when trade, commerce, finance, art and science, 
and the other agencies of an improving civilization, 



318 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

combine against those who delight in scattering the 
seeds of discontent among the people, very few of 
those followers of the forgiving Christ, who, to the 
last, pleaded even for his executioners, "will find 
congregations to listen to them. 

THE BALLOT AND THE PARDON. 

There is a magnificent and boundless future de- 
pending upon theelection of General Hancock to the 
Presidency. Even if this fact were not clear, the ex- 
periment itself would be worth trying. To satisfy 
the sections is to my mind the first essential. 
When Judge Mackey, of South Carolina, relates 
that the 4th of July, 1880, was celebrated for the 
first time in the South in twenty years, and that 
General Hancock's nomination was the moving 
cause^ he states a profound and significant fact. 
Alternation of administration is the highest phi- 
losophy in any free government, particularly in 
the United States. To leave fifteen states in a 
condition of alienation and distrust for more than 
fifteen years after they had been enfranchised 
by a great government, is a fearful trial in such a 
country as ours, and none but madmen would 
think of it. And yet that is just what the 
Eepublicans now intend. 

What madness to keep the whole South like a 
running sore in the side of the nation! The busi- 
ness men of the country want to feel the Southern 
people in the channels of trade and commerce, and 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 319 

all other interests are equally concerned in their 
return. After the prosperous reign of Queen 
Elizabeth, in Great Britain, came twenty years of 
civil war, and with that civil war, inconceivable 
misery. We have had our share of depression 
since our twenty years of civil war, and it will be 
our own fault if we do not elect Hancock, and 
better so for our people. When we get rid of 
this greed of money as we have got rid of slavery, 
the culture of the North and the culture of the 
South, and the industry of the North and of the 
South, will move together hand in hand, and 
sweeter manners and better laws will reign in all 
the states. 

There are two great instrumentalities working 
to this happy sequel. The ballot to the freedmen, 
and the pardon to the Confederate. These are the 
twin influences, springing from different motives, 
and yet both irresistibly working to the same end. 
When Mr. Sumner spoke of the ballot as the 
colored man's lawyer, physician, school-master, 
and clergyman, as the colored man's soldier and 
solace, and as the protector of his home and future, 
he did not state an extravagance. He might at 
the same time have added to the ballot the mag- 
nanimous pardon extended to the Confederate 
by the government. The ballot freshly enfran- 
chised the freedman, the pardon freshly strength- 
ened the Confederate. The ballot can no more be 
withdrawn from the one than the pardon can be 



320 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

withheld from the other, given at the same time in 
one spirit of generosity and magnanimity. In 
justice to the freedman and in clemency to the 
Confederate, they will go together to the end 
and contribute equally to the prosperity of the 
South. 

FIFTY YEARS OF HISTORY TEACHING BY EXAMPLE. 

A Presidential struggle in the United States is 
a spectacle to the foreigner of original and momen- 
tous magnitude, but no similar event hg-s aroused 
more novel issues and will live longei* in history 
than the present political agitation. Exactly fifty 
years ago, General Jackson had been two years 
President, and was preparing for another term, 
which was also crowned with victory, in the midst 
of unparalleled excitement. 

The next great agitation was twenty years after, 
when the compromise measures aroused the whole 
people and led to the formation of what is called the 
Eepublican party in 1856. That party obtained the 
administration, four years later, by another divi- 
sion of the old Democracy, and held the National 
power from 1860 to the present time. Thus it 
will be seen that the Democrats were about half 
these fifty years in power. And now more than 
twenty years since the exclusion of the Democrats, 
the American people seem disposed to try them 
again, and judging by the accessions from the Ke- 
publicans, the chances are clearly in favor of the 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 321 

election of the Democratic candidate, General Han- 
cock. 

The campaign has hardly opened, but already 
the manifestations of distrust of the present Repub- 
lican party are so numerous as to presage a revolu-' 
tion like that which swept Jackson into the Presi- 
dency in 1828, General W. H. Harrison into the 
Presidency in 1840, General Zachary Taylor into the 
Presidency in 1848, Lincoln into the Presidency in 
1860, and Grant in 1868 and 1872. These five 
elections were largely the result of popular discon- 
tent. Jackson was triumphant because the people 
of all parties were convinced that John Quincy 
Adams had been elected, during the previous year, 
1824, by the House of Representatives, to the Presi- 
dency wrongfully, and because also Jackson was a 
great military favorite. Harrison was elected 
because the people were dissatisfied with Martin 
Van Buren, the heir of '' Old Hickory," as Gen- 
eral Jackson was called. Taylor — Zachary Taylor 
—was elected by a division of the Democratic 
party on the slavery question, the Wilmot proviso 
figuring largely in the disruption. And Abraham 
Lincoln was elected in 1860 by another Democratic 
division, more serious, because slavery had finally 
resolved upon a partition of the Union. Grant 
came in be/3ause the po|)ular heart thrilled to his 
bravery in the field, and his great magnaminity 
to the conquered South. The Old Democracy 
are getting together as rapidly as they separated 
21 



322 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF' 

twenty years before. Conciliation has taken the 
place of coercion, patriotism has pushed mere 
party aside, the North is hungering to take the 
South back into its arms, and the South is plead- 
ing to come to the National fireside, under the 
administration of the Union soldier who helped to 
conquer the Confederacy. 

History in all these fifty years shows how 
faithful the American people have been to two 
ideas : gratitude to those who have served them 
in the battle-field, and tenacious fidelity to freedom. 
Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, and Grant were four 
soldiers w^ho had served with great distinction, 
representing difierent parties, coming into the 
Presidency with the help of other parties; and 
although Lincoln was no soldier but a simple Re- 
publican, his honest patriotism literally created 
and absolutely crystalized the most powerful party 
of his generation. 

Now comes Hancock, another soldier and 
another Democrat like Jackson, with equal claims 
to national consideration. Jackson drove back 
the British army and saved New Orleans and the 
whole Louisiana purchase, together with the com- 
mand of the Mississippi, on the field of Chalmette, 
January 8th^ 1815. Hancock saved his native 
state from successful invasion in 1863, by this act 
also delivering the whole North including our 
commercial metropolis. New York, and our poli- 
tical metropolis, Washington, from Confederate 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 323 

invasion. Such is fifty years of history teaching 
by example. 

The individual illustrations of this theory are 
as startling as they are numerous. They prove 
that every useful political revolution in this coun- 
try has been consummated by the concerted action 
of patriotic men of all parties. Neither Jackson, 
Harrison, Taylor, nor Grant, could have been 
made President without a combination between 
men of different organizations. They were not 
elected by any one party, although nominated by 
certain distinctive organizations. Hancock is the 
candidate of the Democratic party, but his success 
will be assured by contributions from many other 
quarters. There is not a county in the Union, 
North or South, in which this assertion is not 
daily established. And although mere partisans 
who gather under the flag of the mere party 
candidate. General Garfield, are claiming accessions 
to their columns, the assumption is too ridiculous 
for belief. 

In the South, the colored men who would have 
been solid for Grant, are daily inclining to Hancock 
in view of his declarations in favor of maintaining 
the Constitutional guarantees since the war. In 
the North, the immense percentage of Democratic 
volunteers in the Northern army is increased by 
recruits from the Republican veterans, and the 
returning tide, composed of Democrats who were 
diverted from the old organization in 1860 by 



324 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Lincoln and Judge Douglas, is constantly adding 
to the Democratic organization. But stronger 
than all, more effective than all individual accre- 
tions, is the one great principle of Conciliation. 
Loyalty to the flag and fidelity to the Union were 
the elements tliat organized and made irresistible 
the Union Party from 1860 to 1865. Now, the 
war being over, the Constitution amended by the 
abolition of slavery, and the forgiveness of the do- 
mestic enemy, peace and prosperity being restored, 
Conciliation is as natural and necessary to the 
American people as the preservation of their in- 
stitutions was twenty years ago. 

THE DOCTRINE OF TRUE NATIONALITY. 

That common-sense philosopher, James Parton, 
enunciates in a very interesting paper contributed 
to the Magazine of American History iov August, 
1879, on ^'The Traditional and Real Washington," 
a plain principle from which I quote because I think 
it touches, as it settles all disputes in reference to 
National Allegiance and State Sovereignty. Like 
General Hancock's Order No. 40, and his thought- 
ful reply to Governor Pease of Texas, this axiomatic 
presentation of a common-sense truth, is the platform 
of all genuine Americans. Since our Civil War 
and the overthrow of slavery, and the abandon- 
ment of State Sovereignty, in the sense that it 
preceded the higher obligation to the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, I think there are fe\^, 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 325 

of any party, who will question the striking illus- 
tration of Mr. Parton. 

"Jefferson, trained from youth in republican ideas, believed that 
men could govern themselves, as well on the great scale as on the small. 
Hamilton, as we know, not merely did not hold this opinion, but had 
little patience with it ; he held it in contempt, as an evidence of 
provincial narrowness or fanaticism. Jefferson, a native of Virginia, 
descended from a Jefferson who was a member of the first legislative 
body that ever sat on the Western Continent, a Virginian of the Virgi- 
nians, was opposed, by patriotic instinct, to every measure which made ' 
Virginia seem anything less than sovereign. Hamilton, not a native 
of the country, was devoid of sympathy with the pride of New Yorkers 
in New York, and with the pride of Virginians in Virginia. He would 
have willingly seen State government abolished, and State lines 
obliterated. No man unassisted by feeling would have been equal to 
the invention of the federal system. But Jefferson was assisted by his 
feelings, and he took naturally to the doctrine of strict construction. 
The American system, as he conceived it, and as Madison expounded 
it, was then, and is now, the one chance of the United States : a central 
government, very simple, inexpensive, unimposing, and strictly confined 
to the duties assigned it by the letter of the Constitution ; leaving to the 
States every other governmental function. Never was there anything 
devised so excellent, so safe, so practicable. I see in it the solution, not 
merely of our own political problems, but of those which perplex and 
alarm Europe and parts of Asia. No man can foresee how long the 
struggle will last in the Old World, between dynasties and peoples, 
between authority and freedom, between equality and privilege ; but if 
the inhabitants of Christendom really have it in them to advance in 
political knowledge and self-control, nothing is more certain than that 
the American federal system — E Pluribus XJnum — as it existed in the 
minds of Jefferson and Madison, modified by time, place and events, is 
the system in which they will find peace and safety at last." 



826 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 



CHAPTER X. 

INCIDENTS AND ANECDOTES OF A GREAT SOLDIEr'S 

CAREER. 

Y old friend, Stephen A. Douglas, was not as 
practiced an "Anecdotarian," if I may invent 
a word, as Abraham Lincoln, who was the 
model story-teller of his day and time, but he had 
a fund of exquisite humor. Whenever he talked 
about the Presidency he rarely failed to relate the 
incident of the western candidate for office, whose 
wife said to him, "Now, my dear, you are anxious 
to be squire in our township, and I want you to 
tell me honestly, whether you have ever done any- 
thing in your life that you are afraid that the 
world should know; because, my dear, a man w4io 
wants to be squire of our town, will be cussed and 
discussed, and if they found out anything bad you 
will be sure to be disgraced." 

And so Douglas would add, "1 am in the posi- 
tion of a man resolved not to be astonished about 
anything they say about me." And then he would 
tell with infinite humor, how, on one occasion a 
friend of his was charged with horse stealing, 
while he was running for the Legislature. " There," 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 327 

he said, "I am resolved to make a point," and he 
brought suit against his calumniator, and the worst 
of it was that the man who charged him with 
stealing a horse, proved it upon him ! I do not 
think that General Hancock need to be ashamed 
of any part of his record since he was an entered 
cadet at the United States Military Academy, when 
he was 16 years old. 

GENERAL HANCOCK'S CONSIDERATION FOR THE HON<^ OF HIS 

OFFICERS. 

Captain was a gallant officer of the 2d Delaware Regiment, 

(4th Brigade), which was largely recruited in Philadelphia. He had 
on several occasions been tested by General Hancock, and his Colonel, 
(David Stryker), in trying exigencies and proved himself worthy of 
their confidence. 

On one occasion he had just returned to camp after days of picket duty 
during heavy storms, worn-out and fatigued. But unfortunately just 
before he had prepared himself for rest, an injudicious friend handed 
him a copy of the Philadelphia Inquirer, which had come into camp 
during his absence and pointed out to him a War Department statement 
which had been telegraphed to the newspapers throughout the country, 
through the Associated Press. It contained a long list of " Officers 
absent without leave,^' and among the most prominent of them stood the 
name of " Capt. ." 

The blow was a severe one, especially in his tired, worn-out condi- 
tion. Publicly disgraced to his family and his friends ! Posted at his 
own home ! 

Naturally, a man of quick decision, the Captain forgot his fatigue, 
drew his sword from its scabbard, and without saying a word to his com- 
rades, walked direct to the Colonel's tent. 

The Colonel was at the time busy writing or dictating to his Adjutant. 

" Colonel ! " hoarsely shouted the indignant Captain. " There is my 
Bword," he threw it upon the vacant tent-cot. *' I fight no more 



328 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

for my country, which has disgraced me. You can do wh you please 
with me — cashier me if you like, — but I perform no more duty." 

The amazement of the Colonel, who was a bosom friend, as well as a 
superior officer, may be imagined, as the Captain disappeared as sud- 
denly as he had made his dramatic entree. 

Personal friendship conquered official pride, and within fifteen min- 
utes the Colonel was at the Captain's tent and seated on a stool at his 
bed-side. 

" Come, William," he said soothingly, as he took his brother officer's 
hand in his. '' There must be some grave error here. What is the cause 
of all this demonstration — so unusual on your part and unworthy of 
you ? Talk to me as a friend and brother." 

" It's no use, Colonel. I had hoped to go through the war with you, 
but my country has disgraced me at my home, and I can fight for it no 
longer." 

And then the Captain's companions showed the Colonel the obnoxious 
paragraph in the War Department order, and he grasped the subject of 
the trouble at once. 

"This will never do, Captain! I'll ride over to General Hancock's 
headquarters at once, and I know he will never allow you to rest under 
this stigma." 

In an hour or so the Colonel was back. " General Hancock wishes to 
see you at once, Captain. He says there has been a grave mistake 
somewhere, and he is determined to have it righted. He told me to say 
to you that he knew and remembered you well." 

" It's no use, Colonel. Let me rest. The thing has been done. My 
family and friends are all ashamed of me. I cannot face them again. 
My services are over." 

A day or two elapsel before the Captain had overcome his despond- 
ency, and even then he was still reckless. 

" You must go. Captain. The General has waited for you long 
enough. The first thing you know you may make him angry, and have 
a guard, sent after you," was the Colonel's clincher. 

" General Hancock, I've come to you against my will, but because of 
my personal respect." 



TINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 329 

"Sit down, Captain, and tell me all about it,'' was the hearty greeting 
he received, with the General's open hand. 

It did not take long to tell. 

'* I want you to understand, Captain, that I consider the personal honor 
of my officers and soldiers as sacred as my own ! " exclaimed General 
Hancock, as he grasped the whole subject. " Especially those in whom 
I know I can place trust. Now, Captain, go back to your tent and leave 
this whole matter to me. There has been some gross bungling some- 
where, and I am going to find it out and have it remedied. You need 
do no duty ; amuse yourself as you may ; and I promise you that I, 
if *I do not set this whole thing right within one week, both to your satis- 
faction and my own, I will give you an honorable discharge ! " 

It took four days to discover that not only Captain , but 

twelve other officers had been the victims of the hasty and careless exe- 
cution of War Department orders by an aide-de-camp. The Department 
for information, knowing that a good many officers were then absent at 
a time when they were all needed, had issued orders to have their names 
collected quickly, and instead of through the usual formalities. So the 
Aide having charge of the brigade comprising the regiment to which 
the Captain belonged, had suddenly popped in on Colonel Stryker, a 
couple of weeks before with the query, — 

'' Colonel, how many of your officers are out of camp to-day ? " 

'' Well, let me see. There is Captain so and so, and Lieutenant such 
and such, and Captain , — he hasn't got in yet," and so on re- 
turned the Colonel, little knowing the purpose of the information, and 
that he was innocently disgracing his best friend by not classifying him 
as " absent on picket duty," and a weary one at that. 

But General Hancock righted him. The War Department promptly 
issued an order of explanation and rectification, and made it as public 
as it had the obnoxious one a fortnight before. 

GENERAL HAlSrCOCK'S HOESE SHOT UNDER HIM AT THE BATTLE 
OF ream's STATION, VA., AUG. 25, 1864. 

At the battle of Eeam's Station, Va. Aug. 25, 1864, General Hancock 
had his horse shot under him while engaged in pushing some of our 



330 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

troops against the enemy, under a very hot musketry fire. The norse 
received a very singular wound in its effects. It was shot through the 
neck ''creased, as the hunters on the prairie would call it, that is, 
the ball passed so close to the spinal cord as to paralyze the animal ; it 
fell instantly to the ground, as if dead. The General extricated himself, 
and was about to mount another horse, when the wounded animal 
commenced struggling, then rose to its feet, and, in a few moments, 
was apparently well as ever. The General mounted it again, and rode it 
the remainder of the day. It was a favorite with him, and he kept it 
until 1868, when it met an accidental death. 

Hunters on the western prairies are said to capture wild horses by 
** creasing" them, that is, striking them with a rifle-ball so close to the 
spinal cord as to temporarily paralyze them ; and while in this stunned 
condition, they are secured. Horses are saidjiot to be permanently 
injured by " creasing," but it requires good shooting to accomplish it. 

THE WOUND RECEIVED BY GENERAL HANCOCK A'^ GETTYSBURG, 

AND ITS EFFECTS. 

At Gettysburg, where General Hancock commanded the 'Ueft 
centre " of the aiyiiy, July 3, 1863, consisting of the 1st, 2d and 3d Army 
Corps, he received a wound, which was supposed, at the time, to be 
mortal. He was stricken, by a musket-ball, while on his line of battle, 
just at the moment of the repulse of the enemy's grand final assault. 
The ball passed through the front of his saddle, and carried into the 
wound with it a large wrought nail from the saddle-tree. The bullet 
and the nail entered near the groin, the ball passing through the ♦high, 
and lodging near the socket of the thigh-bone, which it slightly 
splintered. The General was assisted from his horse by the officers of 
General Stannard's staff*, who were near him at the time. He remained 
upon the ground until the assaulting column had been driven entirely 
from the field, giving orders to his troops. From the point at which he 
lay, he could see the field of battle, by raising himself on his elbow; and 
from that point he sent one of his aids to inform General Meade that we 
had won a great victory. 

This wound so disabled General Hancock as to unfit him for field- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 331 

service, until the following December, when he returned to the Army 
of the Potomac, and resumed command of the 2d Corp^, to take part in 
the campaign of 1864. The wound, however, had not healed, and gave 
him great trouble and annoyance during the campaign ; and although 
he continued with his command, he was obliged to travel in an ambu- 
lance the greater portion of the time. 

His habit, on the march, was to remain in his ambulance, at the head 
of his column, until within the vicinity of the enemy, when he 
mounted his horse, and so remained until the fighting was over. 

During the whole of the summer of 1864, he was daily attended by a 
surgeon, on account of his wound, which, at that time, was much 
irritated, and discharging more or less, all the time, small portions of the 
bone, at times, passing from it. 

While in front of the enemy's works, at Petersburg, Va., in June, 
1864, where the troops were constantly under fire, and the General was 
obliged to be mounted nearly all the time, both day and night, his 
wound became so inflamed and dangerous that he was compelled to 
relinquish command of the Corps, for a few days. June 17th, after the 
bloody fight of that day was over, he turned over the command to his 
next in rank. He did not, however, leave the field, but continued with 
the troops, and again assumed command of the Corps June 27th, finding 
himself much relieved from the discharge of quite a large piece of bone 
from the wound. 

He continued to suffer from his wound during all the remaining time 
of the war, and, indeed, feels serious effects from it to this time. 

GENERAL HANCOCK AT THE BATTLE OF " WHITE OAK SWAMP," 

JUNE 30th, 1862, 

On the evening of June 30th, 1862, after the battle of " White Oak 
Swamp," on the Peninsula, had closed, General Franklin, commanding 
the 6th Corps (and rear guard of the army), to which Hancock's brigade 
was attached, sent for General Hancock, and said to him, that hi 4 
(Franklin's) orders seemed to require him to hold his position at 
** White Oak Swamp," until the following morning, but that he had 
information which convinced him that a force of the enemy had inter- 



332 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

posed between his force and Harrison's Landing, the point on James 
river to which the Army of the Potomac was then retreating. He had 
taken the opinions of others of his commanders as to whether or not, 
under the circumstances, he should hold on where he was until daylight, 
or march then, and rejoin the other corps of the army by the next morning, 
and he now wished the views of General Hancock on the same point. 
General Hancock at once gave it as his opinion that he should march 
then, and not wait for daylight, stating as his reasons therefor, that if the 
enemy had placed himself, on the road, between the 6th corps and the 
James, he would be much better prepared to dispute his passage by 
morning than that night, when we would come upon him suddenly, and 
most likely break through. 

General Franklin concurred in this view of the matter, and the corps 
was immediately put in motion, General Hancock taking command of 
the advance, during the night-march, when it was momentarily thought 
we would come in contact, with the enemy, on the road. 

As it turned out, it was well this course was pursued, for had the 6th 
corps remained all night at '' White Oak Swamp," it could have only 
joined the main army next day by a desperate struggle, for early the 
next day the enemy were in great force on the road on which it marched 
during the night. 

COLONEL II. BOYD M'KEEN-, 81st PENNSYLVANIA VOLUNTEERS. 

One of the most distinguisli,ed young officers of the 2d Army Corps was 
Colonel H. Boyd McKeen, 81st Pennsylvania volunteers. He was con- 
spicuous for daring courage in action, and had a mind and temperament 
of that order which would have fitted him to have exercised high com- 
mand, had he lived to attain sufficient rank. General Hancock had 
tried him on many fields, trusted him to the fullest extent, and had 
commended him, in his official reports, on many occasions. 

When the General was about setting out on the " Wilderness" cam- 
paign of 1864, in command of the 2d Army Corps, he sent for Colonel 
M'Keen, then commanding his regiment, and said to him: "Colonel, I 
am sorry that you have not more rank ; for if you had, I could give you 
a brigade, at this time, and I should be pleased to do so." K'Keen 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK, 333 

said, in reply : ''I am obliged to you, General, for your kind intentions 
towards me, of which I am well advised ; but I shall win a brigade 
before this campaign is over. 

Before the corps had been in the field a month, the General was 
enabled to give M'Keen a brigade, owing to the large number of casu- 
alties, in the different battles, among brigade commanders ; and while 
leading it, against the enemy's works, in the terrible assault at Cold 
Harbor, June 3d, 1864, he was killed, with his colors in his hands. 
General Hancock felt his loss bitterly, and it was a severe one to the 
army and the country, as he had probably no superior, of his grade, in 
our whole service. 

Tears came into General Hancock's eyes when his noble conduct and 
death were announced to him. 

COL. EDWARD E. CROSS, 5tH N. H. VOLS. 

Another soldier of the Second Army Corps of marked ability and of 
most intrepid courage was Col. Edward E. Cross, Fifth New Hamp- 
shire Volunteers. 

No man excelled in leading troops in desperate contests, and he 
commanded a regiment unsurpassed for good conduct and stubborn, 
dauntless valor. It would not break or give way. At " Fredericks- 
burg," during the assault on *' Marye's Heights," it had five command- 
ers killed or wounded. Col. Cross was the first to fall with a dangerous 
wound. While at " Gettysburg," on the second day of the battle, it 
lost just one-half o{ its numbers killed outright. 

General Hancock made many efforts to obtain Col. Cross' promotion 
to the rank of Brigadier General of Volunteers, for his conspicuous 
bravery and services, but was not successful. The Colonel was not 
right with his own State authorities politically (whose preferences were 
disregarded'by the appointing powers)'and in addition to his Democratic 
views was not slow to give vent to his likes and dislikes ; talked too 
plainly perhaps. 

Just before the action began at " Gettysburg " General Hancock said 
to him that he regretted " that thus far he had not been able to procure 
his promotion, but that he felt quite confident that battle would make him 



334 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

a brigadier." *'.No, General," said Cross, this is my last fight; I shall 
be killed here." And sure enough, the brave oM Colonel was shot 
through the body in that day's battle, and died within a few hours 
thereafter. He had been severely wounded in different battles, at least 
six or eight times previously. 

GENERAL MEADe'S ESTIMATE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 

In a letter addressed to General W. G. Mitchell, dated December 15, 
1875, by General R. C. Drum, the writer uses this language : " . . . 
In the latter part of 1869, after his recovery from a severe attack of ill- 
ness. General Meade, in speaking of the various officers who had 
served under him, while in command of the Army of the Potomac, 
used the following : * No commanding General ever had a better Lieuten- 
ant than Hancock. He was always faithful and reliable.' " 

FAREWELL TO HANCOCK. 
When General Hancock was ordered to other duties, the following 
little ode was written by a member of the corps and sung at the time. 
The writer was Sergeant L. Reynols. 

FAREWELL TO MAJOR GENERAL HANCOCK, 
On his taking leave of his gallant " Old Second Army Corps." 

AIR — " Star Spangled Banner." 
'' As with sorrow the lone, lone mother is parting 

Her fond, favorite child, though a young, happy bride, 
Aa grieves the true friend when his comrade is starting 

For wealth, or for glory, o'er ocean's dark tide — 
So, our heart now in sorrow, dark shadow oppressing, 

For the hero who guides us to conquest no more ; 
So, each eye frames a tear, and each bosom a blessing, 

For Hancock, the pride of the bold Second Corps. 

** "We remember the perils from which your skill saved us — 
How you felt for your troops as the sire for his son ; 

How when foemen loud cheering with gallant pride braved us, 
You led the fierce charge and the victory won. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 335 

Though life's pathway may lead thee to still brighter glory, 

Forget not your comrades in battles of yore, 
For pure is the record, and glorious the story, 

Of Hancock, the pride of the bold Second Corps. 

** Farewell ! Oh, how painful to break our connection, 

But duty compels it, and sadly we part ; 
But nothing can sever the bond of affection, 

That binds to brave Hancock the true soldier's heart. 
As gold to the miser, as the bride to her lover. 

Art thou to those friends who may see thee no more • 
We'll think of thee, Hancock, we'll love thee forever, 

Then remember, brave chieftain, thy bold Second Corps." 

This glorious Second Corps is remembered by 
both armies. It is related of a Kepublican friend 

of Hancock, who asked him after the war, 

"Well, General Hancock, how about the Second 
Corps?" The General paused a moment, and laid 
his hand on his friend's shoulder — "They are at 
rest, most of them are in heaven!" 

For some of the preceding, as well as for the fol- 
lowing incidents and anecdotes the writer is in- 
debted to his gallant and accomplished friend. 
General Mitchell, who belonged through the war, ' 
and yet belongs to General Hancock's staff. 

Charlie's choice of horses. 

When General Hancock was on the "Peninsula," in the Spring of 
1862, commanding his brigade, he had a servant named " Charles " 
(colored) who was a good groom and kept the General's horses in fine 
condition, but it was not generally considered around headquarters 
that " Charles " was at all fond of shooting. 



336 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

One morning we were about to go into action and " Charles " re- 
ported to the General to know which horse of his two (he had a fine 
bay and a sorrel) he would ride that day. " I think I will ride the bay 
to-day, Charles," said the General. Charles stood awhile as if buried 
in deep thought and then turning to the General said : " I think you 
better ride de sor'l, to-day Gineral, he's de swiftest.'' It was understood 
by those who knew Charles that he gave this advice because he con- 
sidered the best horse for a fight one that could get away the fastest. 
Some supposed, however, that the bay was really the " sunftest " and that 
Charles wanted to ride it that day himself so that he could move 
more rapidly in case of the enemy getting after him. 

THE ]Sr. C. LIZARD. 

General G. K. Warren commanded the Second Army Corps at Bris- 
tow Station, October 14th, 1863, General Hancock then being absent 
on account of disability from his Gettysburg wound. 

The Confederates were beaten, and a number of prisoners were cap- 
tured, most of them North Carolinians. One of them was brought to 
where General Warren and his staff were, and the General compli- 
mented the man on the gallant manner in which his brigade charged 
our lines in column under a very hot fire. " Well," said the man. 
" that's so, General, we done purty well, but for my part I was never in 
a fight before, and when I see'd our fellows breakin' I knowed the 
thing was gone up, so I jest threw myself on the ground and laid closer 
nor a lizard to a rail." 

ANECDOTE OF GENERAL ALEXANDER HAYS OF PITTSBURG, 
PENNA., AT THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. 

One of the bravest spirits in our army, during the war, was General 
Alexander Hays, of Pittsburg, Penna. He joined the Second Army 
Corps with his division near Centreville, Va. On the march to *' Gettys- 
burg," and during that battle, his troops held the ground immediately 
on the left of the Taneytown Eoad, on our front line of battle. 

His skirmishers were deployed in the valley before him. A large 
barn stood on the plain just beyond his skirmish line, which was held 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 337 

by the Confederate skirmishers in considerable force, and from which 
they maintained a galling fire. 

Seeing this condition of affairs, Hays mounted his horse and, with 
his staff following him, his division flag flying, rode directly to his 
skirmishers, ordered them to advance at a run, himself leading the way 
to the barn. The Confederates in the building and on their skirmish 
line opened a hot fire, but tiays could not be stopped, and his men, 
catching his spirit, drove the Southern skirmishers back on either side 
of the barn and captured all who were in the building. Hays sent his 
prisoners to the rear, retired his skirmishers to their original line and 
awaited further developments. The Confederate skirmishers were soon 
reinforced, and advancing, took their former line, again occupying the 
barn. Hays then repeated his first movement— rushed down to his 
skirmishers, carried them forward as before, and again bagged all of 
the Southerners in the barn. 

Very sharp musketry fire accompanying these movements, caused 
some to suppose that a serious fight was going on. General Hancock, 
who had been quietly watching the matter, now sent an aide to Hays to 
say to him that he might bring on a general engagement, (which was not 
at that moment desired by General Meade) by holding on to the barn, 
within the enemy's skirmish line, and that he would please, therefore, 
burn the building and retire his skirmishers to the line originally held 
liy them. 

These were very unwelcome orders to Hays, who was then in his 
element, and delighted with the manner in which he had been bagging . 
the enemy. Turning to the aide he said, -Major, please return to 
General Hancock and say to him that that barn is my trap. I have caught 
more than one hundred and fifty in it this morning and if he will only alkw 
me to withdraw my line so that they will come into it again, and then 
let me take one more dash at it, I will willingly burn it as he directs." 
But the aide replied that General Hancock's orders were peremptory, 
and must be carried out at once. Seeing that there was no hope of the 
orders being rescinded, Hays reluctantly caused the barn to be set on 
fire, and then slowly carried his skirmish line back to its first posi- 
tion. 



o 



38 LIFE AND PUBLIC CABEEB OF 



The stone foundations of the old barn were still standing in 1887 
(when the writer visited the field of Gettysburg) a prominent landmark 
on the plain. This is but one of the manj instances which could be 
related of the conspicuous gallantry and dash of Hays. He was greatly 
beloved of General Hancock, and indeed by all who knew him. He 
was killed while under General Hancock's command, leading his troops 
at the Wilderness, May 6th, 1864. 

GENERAL HANCOCK AT GETTYSBURG. 

At Gettysburg, a regiment under General Hancock's command, one 
that had joined the Second Corps on the march to the field, and had not 
yet been under a hot fire, was posted at an important point on the left 
of battle. 

Whenever the General passed by that regiment, as he did frequently, 
while riding along the line, the men cheered him loudly, clamoring to 
be led against the enemy. These demonstrations were repeated so fre- 
quently that the General became impatient, coming as they did from 
men who had not '' smelled much powder," and thinking to stop them 
he drew up his horse beside the regiment and quietly said to them, that 
all he required them to do was to maintain a firm line and hold their 
ground in case they were attacked. At this a dozen or more big-throated 
fellows rushed out of the ranks toward the General and cried, ''General, 
we'll never leave this ground until you order us away." " That's right, 
my men," said the General, " That's right, your line is entirely safe now, 
for I will never order you away J' This was a little more encouragement 
than the new soldiers wanted. Their countenances fell and lengthened 
visibly as they went back ^to their places in the line. The cheering 
stopped there and then. The old Second Corps men, who witnessed 
this scene, some of whom had followed the General on every bloody 
field from Antietam to Gettysburg and knew how little he was given to 
order men to quit a line of battle, had a grim laugh, as he rode off to 
another part of the line. 

ANECDOTE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
W^hen General Hancock was encamped with his brigade near Lewins- 
ville, Virginia, in the Spring of 1861, before the Army of the Potomac 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 339 

moved to the Peninsula, certain officers of his command desired to know 
whether h-e would accept as a mark of esteem from the brigade, a silver 
service. • 

The General declined the gift, stating to those who had come to see 
him on the subject, that he did not approve of such presentations, and, 
at all events, it would be best to wait until the war was over, as, in the 
meantime the officers and men concerned might change in their feelings 
to\Tards him. This ended the matter, as it was plainly perceived by 
thoje engaged in it, that the General would not accept such a favor from 
those under his command. 

AIS'ECDOTE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
In September, 1861, soon after General Hancock had been assigned 
a C3mmand in Smith's division, Army of the Potomac, he was ordered 
to proceed with several regiments to join in the general movement to 
occupy Munson's Hill on the south side of the Potomac, in front of 
"Washington. The march was to be made after night fall, and to ac- 
complish it, he had to pass through a picket line of another command. 
The pickets (owing to some neglect), were not informed of the matter, 
and, mistaking General Hancock's regiment for the enemy, opened fire 
upon them, killing and wounding a number of men. This caused the 
greatest confusion, and, (the troops being unused to fire), a general stam- 
pede seemed likely to occur. One volley from the pickets killed or 
wounded five or six cavalry orderlies of a mounted party with the Gen- 
eral at the time, also killing or wounding some of their horses, but left 
him. unhurt in their midst. A number of faint hearts, taking advantage 
of the night, started to the rear. The General specially noticed (it was 
a moonlight night), two individuals making hasty strides in that direc- 
tion. He halted them, asked them who they were, and where they 
were going. They replied that they were "officers '' and were not leaving 
the field on account of being alarmed, but because they had not yet been 
mustered into service, and they did not think it right for them to go into 
action in that unprotected state. "Well," said the General, '' if that is 
your only trouble, I can relieve you. I am General Hancock, your com- 
manding officer, I will muster you into service now. Hold up your 



340 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

right hands." They held up their hands and the General administered 
the usual oath from memory. "Now," said he, "You are mustered in; 
join your command and remain with it." They started slowly towards 
the front and continued in that direction as long as they were under the 
General's eye. But it is presumed that they went rearwards again as 
soon as they passed beyond his observation. The General heard no 
more of them until a few months later, wlien he received a letter from 
an officer saying that himself and another officer, with thirty of his men, 
could not draw their pay because there was no record of their having 
been mustered into service — that he, General Hancock, had mustered 
himself and the other referred to into service, and that he woulc be 
obliged to the General for a certificate to that effect. 

The General replied that he recollected distinctly of administering the 
. oath to two officers under the circumstances herein related. He did not 
now, nor then know who they were, and had never seen them or heard 
from them since that eventful night, but, the letter of the applicant 
convinced him that he was one of the persons in question, for he was verj 
sure that no one would have written for a certificate of muster made, 
unless he was one of the officers concerned. Whether or not they re- 
ceived their pay upon the presentation of the General's letter, is not 
known. 

GEISTEKAL HANCOCK (THEN LIEUTENANT HANCOCK) AT THE 
BATTLE OF CHERUBUSCO, MEXICO. 

At the battle of Cherubusco, Mexico, August 20, 1847, General Han- 
cock (then Lieutenant Hancock) was struck on the leg below the knee 
by a musket-ball. The contusion, however, was so slight, that he did 
not report himself as wounded. (Keport of Capt. Wm. Hoffman, com- 
manding 6th Infantry in that action, dated Tacubaya, Mexico, August 
23d, 1847, mentions Lieutenant Hancock for gallant conduct.) 

GENERAL HANCOCK'S HORSE SHOT UNDER HI]M AT CHANCEL- 
LORS VILLE, VA. 

At the battle of Chancellorsville, May 3, 1863, General Hancock, then 
commanding 1st Division, 2d Corps, had his horse shot under him. 
This occurred at the junction of the roads near the Chancellor House, 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 341 

where the General had fixed his headquarters during the operations of 
a part of the 2d and all of the 3d of May. A ball struck the horse, 
wounding it very severely, and while it was being led away, after the 
General had dismounted, a round shot struck it again in the side, kill- 
ing it at once. The fire was very severe at that time and place, espe- 
cially from the enemy's batteries, which completely swept the open 
space occupied by General Hancock and his staff. 

GENERAL HANCOCK AT FREDERICKSBURG. (ASSAULT ON MARYE'S 
HEIGHTS, DEC. 13, 1862.) 

During the assault on Marye's Heights, battle of Fredericksburg, 
Dec. 13, 1862, and while General Hancock, on horseback, was leading 
his Division (1st Division, 2d Army Corps), to the attack against the 
famous stone wall, behind which the enemy's troops were posted, a ball 
cut through his vest, just grazing the skin of the abdomen, and passed 
on through his coat on the right hand side. 

That assault was one of the bloodiest affairs of the whole war. No 
troops engaged behaved more handsomely or suffered more severely 
than those of Hancock's division. His official report shows that of 
5,000 men and officers, taken into action on that occasion, 2,013 were 
killed or wounded, and of these 156 were commissioned officers. As 
above stated. General Hancock himself narrowly escaped death,,and of 
five officers of his personal staff with him, three were wounded, and 
four had their horses shot under them. 

HANCOCK AT GETTYSBURG. 

One of the traits which wedded Hancock's men to him was his daunt- 
less bravery, so natural to him, which always led him to that part of 
his line of battle, where the fire was hottest. A never-to-be-forgotten 
display of the chivalric nature of the man in this respect was made at 
Gettysburg on the last day of that battle. 

Lee preceded his final assault by the fire of 125 guns, directed wholly 
on the line occupied by Hancock's troops. It was literally a storm of 
shot and shell. The oldest soldiers there — those who had taken part 
in the most desperate battles of the war — had witnessed nothing like it. 
The men lay close to the earth and sought every inch of shelter their 



342 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

light works afforded, while the shell burst over their heads, tore through 
their ranks, and filled the air with that awful rushing sound, which 
causes the firmest hearts to quail as in the very presence of death. 

In the most tumultuous moments of this fire, Hancock, mounted, 
started at the riglit of his line of battle, and followed by his stafi, his 
corps flag flying in the hands of a brave Irishman of the 6th New York 
cavalry — rode slowly along the terrible crest, to the left of his position, 
while the shot and shell roared and crashed around him, and every 
moment tore great gaps in the ranks at his side. 

It was a gallant deed of heroic valor, such as a knight of olden time 
might have performed, and withal, was not a reckless exposure of life, 
without an object ; for the noble presence and calm demeanor of the 
commander as he passed througli his lines during that fiery crisis, en- 
couraging his men, set an example before them, which an hour later 
cropped out, and nerved the stout hearts to win the greatest and blood- 
iest battle ever fought on American soil. 

GENERAL HANCOCK AT THE GREAT SANITARY FAIR IN PHILA- 
DELPHIA, 1864. 

"On Mrs. Forney's table near the south-western end of Union avenue, 
appropriated to the Committee on Labor, Income, and Revenue, be- 
neath many graceful folds of the national emblem, may be seen the 
most exquisite and appropriately finished photographic album ever 
made in any establishment in the world. It is from the manufactory of 
Messrs. Altemus & Co. It is finished in the most costly style, and is 
designed for two hundred pictures. The album is about twelve inches 
by sixteen inclies in size, and royal purple in cover. The covers pre- 
sent a series of embossed panel work, in the centre of which is the National 
shield. The edges of the work are handsomely done in gold with run- 
ning vine, of oak and laurel, and patriotic designs. The beautifully 
chased clasps are inscribed with the following words : *' For Major-Gene- 
ral Winfield Scott Hancock, 1864."— TAe Press, June 20, 1874. 

THE BATTLE OF WILLIA.MSBURG IN 1862. 

The following is the opening paragraph of an 
editorial in the N. Y. Herald of May 24, 1862, re- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 343 

ferring to the full report of the battle of Williams- 
burg published in the Herald of the same date 
written by Colonel Findley Anderson : 

" The battle of Williamsburg must become historical. Of all our 
battles it was the best contested and the hardest won. Tlie opposing 
forces engaged were very nearly equal. Infantry, cavalry, and artillery 
did each its share of the work. The losses upon both sides equalled 
those of the Allies and the Russians at the terrible battle of Alma. 
The whole contest demonstrated the superiority of American soldiers, 
who are officers and privates at once, over the unintelligent troops of 
other countries. The result proved the wisdom of McClellan's long 
discipline of his army. The severity of the conflict ; the fluctuating 
fortune? of the day ; the unrivalled bravery of our troops ; the desperate 
valor of the rebels ; the continual arrival of reinforcements upon both 
sides ; the daring' charges ; the determined and steady resistances ; the 
skillful manoeuvres and evolutions, and the final irresistible dash of 
Hancock's brigade, made up a narrative matchless in its thrilling in- 
terest. 

" The battle had now raged from early in the morning till near night. 
By the superior intrepidity of our troops the vigorous attacks of the 
enemy had been repulsed, and his last grand advance along the line 
had been handsomely repelled by Gen. Kearney's troops. The enemy 
had tried to turn our left, and had failed, and the subsequent advances 
gradually extended from left to right. The rain was still descending, 
as it had been all day. Gen. Hancock's brigade, which I have previ- 
ously placed on our extreme right, remained in the position he took up 
when he crossed the dam, and occupied some of the evacuated earth- 
works earlier in the afternoon. Expected reinforcements not coming 
up in time, it was deemed more proper that he should fall back from 
his advanced position to the one he occupied at first, immediately after 
crossing the dam. Being occasionally engaged with the enemy, how- 
ever, in order to avoid the bad efiect which a retrograde movement on 
his part might cause, he held the position, keeping his skirmishers de- 
ployed in front. 



344 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

'' The fire near Fort Magruder, to the left, had now almost suhsided, and 
Confederate troops were observed moving in different directions. A force 
of the enemy's infantry filled a work which had remained unoccupied, 
and a body of his cavalry assembled on the plateau, apparently with 
a view of charging on the battery. 

" A vigorous attack on the right made General Hancock apprehen- 
sive that his position might be turned, and he cut off from an opportu- 
nity of retreating, if he should find it necessary, across the dam. His 
brigade fell back in line of battle, followed by the Confederates, firing and 
cheering as they came; and our artillery was also brought back piece by 
piece, the last gun firing a few rounds of canister at the advancing ene- 
my. As soon as the artillery was safe, the Fifth Wisconsin regiment 
on the right, was ordered to retire in the same manner as the other, dis- 
puting the ground as it retreated. Another line was being formed on 
either side of the redoubt by our retiring regiments. The enemy was 
pressing them so hard that when the Fifth Wisconsin had reached the 
second line, followed by the Fifth North Carolina shouting 'Bull Eun, 
Ball's Bluflf"' it was immediately formed to the right and left of the 
redoubt. 

The Confederates were now within some forty yards, and General Han- 
cock ordered an immediate advance of his entire line. This, it will be 
remembered, was composed of the principal portions of the Fifth Wis- 
consin, Sixth and Seventh Maine, Thirty-third New York, and Forty- 
ninth Pennsylvania regiments — in all about two thousand five hundred 
men. These regiments went forward with alacrity, and, as they came 
close to the enemy, delivered a few volleys. Then General Hancock, 
whose politeness is equal to his bravery, gave the command : " Gentle- 
men, charge ! " And his gallant soldiers, with tremendous cheers, dashed 
down the slope. The enthusiastic spirit of the men seemed to be sufli- 
cient to frighten the opposing force, which was said, by prisoners, to be 
General Early's brigade, and, with the exception of three resolute Confe- 
derates who stood to receive the bayonets, the line broke and the Confe- 
derates ran. Pursuing them down the slope General Hancock's command 
halted and fired ten or twelve volleys at them, and also at another Confe- 
derate force which was observed advancing to support the first. When the 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 345 

smoke cleared up the ground was thickly covered with dead and dying 
Confederates. 

" The loss of the enemy at this time must have been tremendous. 
The Fifth North Carolina regiment was almost annihilated. The 
Twenty-fourth Virginia and other regiments lost many officers. Gene- 
ral Early is said to have been wounded and several Colonels killed. 
The prisoners we have captured say that before they went into the action 
General Hill made a brief address'to^he Confederate troops in which he 
told them that we had better arms, that the conflict would be close, that 
he knew they were equal to the task, and that they must walk in and 
give us the cold steel. Then General Early asked them if they were 
ready to take that battery, and they replied that they would try it. 
They did try it, but instead of giving us the cold steel they themselves 
fled at the sight of it. 

" Towards the close of the engagement the Prince de Joinville rode 
oflf and came back with General McClellan vho arrived with heavy 
reinforcements, at the scene of action on the right, just alaout the time 
that General Hancock's command made the final charge. He was 
loudly cheered as he passed, and his presence on the field created the 
most unbounded enthusiasm among his devoted troops. 

" General Hancock's loss in the operations of the day, including 
this charge, was nine killed, ninety-five wounded, and thirty missing. 
That was about the concluding act of engagement ; and when night 
closed on the final scene, our troops all along the line soundly slept on 
the field they had so bravely won. 

*' This battle was a series of charges on either side, from the left to 
the right of the line, from the commencement of the action to its close ; 
but as the ground was covered with felled timber it was difficult for 
troops to manoeuvre speedily in any place except on the right, where 
the advantage of position gave General Hancock an excellent opportu- 
nity to charge. No soldiers ever fought with greater determination 
than did the enemy's and ours. The repeated attempts to turn our 
left were successively repulsed in the most gallant manner, and histo- 
ry does not furnish instances of greater individual valor than was dis- 
played on that memorable field. Surely the ancient days of noble 
chivalrv have been revived." 



346 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

GOING UP TO CHANCELLORSYILLE. 

THE PONTOON TRAIN. 

" We had left our camps opposite Fredericksburg, and moved up 
towards United States Ford, on our way, keeping some distance from 
the river, as the movement was intended to be a secret one. 

The night before reaching the Ford was a terrible one, it having com- 
menced to rain soon after we went into bivouac that evening. It rained 
in perfect torrents, and I was awakened out of my tent, at about twelve 
o'clock at night, with the notice that I had to take command of a detail. 

On arriving at brigade headquarters, where the detail had been 
assembled, I was put in command of the same, and with but the direc- 
tions, pointed out in the dark, " Captain's out on the road ; there you 
will find an engineer- officer, and you will report to him. 

After stumbling along wet grass, and through ditches, I very luckily 
struck the point where the engineer-officer was standing. He inquired 
if "that was a detail?" (Our colonel having been on picket-duty, I 
thought I would have the night to sleep.) I told him, " Yes;" that I 
was looking for an engineer-officer. He said he was the man. He then 
inquired how many picks and shovels we wanted. I told him we had 
not any. " Then," said he, '' your detail won't amount to much." He 
stood there, as if deliberating what to do, and finally concluded we would 
have to go up the road to division headquarters. 

"We tramped up the muddy road for about three-quarters of a mile, 
and came to where large camp-fires were burning, under some trees, just 
off the road, around which were ranged a number of tents, in a semi- 
circular shape. Here we halted. (I should have said that this was the 
division headquarters for the night.) The engineer-officer then went 
off hunting up the picks and shovels, and my men commenced to circle 
round the fires. 

Scarcely had this occurred, when General Hancock's head emerged 
from under the back cover of an ambulance wagon, and inquired, 
•' What troops are those moving?" Some one answered, '' It is only a 
detail. General." Then he inquired, what detail it was ? and as none 
of us knew, at that time, what our duty was intended to be, our only 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 347 

answer was, that it was only a detail, upon which the General asked, 
who commanded it. I stepped forward to where the ambulance- 
wagon was, and replied that I did. He then asked me, if we were 
detailed to get the pontoon train up. I told him I had no instruc- 
tions about what we were to do, but simply to report to an engineer- officer 
on the road. " Yes," said he, " your detail is to get the pontoons out. 
What are you doing up here?" I replied, ''I believe we came up to 
get shovels and picks ; the engineer-officer said we could do nothing 

without them." Said he, " That's some of that d d adjutant's 

work I Orderly," sai<l he, " call the adjutant here." 

In a few seconds the adjutant appeared, and the conversation Hancock 
had with him, was this. He said, "What orders did you give in regard to 
this detail ? Here they are, without a shovel or a pick among them." 
The adjutant replied : " Well, I can't help it. I gave the order just as 
I got it from corps headquarters." Hancock replied, "Oh, quit my 
sight." Then turning to me, he said, " Captain, how many men have 
you ?" (I really did not know how many men I had, as I had not been 
informed, by the adjutant of the brigade, at the time the detail was 
turned over to me ) But there was something in Hancock's manner 
that impressed me that it would not do to be ignorant on any subject, 
just at that time, and I replied, ''Two hundred and eighty." He asked 
" How many sergeants have you got ?" Of course, I was also ignorant 
on this point, but the impression of the necessity of not being ignorant 
on any point being still very strong on me, you understand, I replied, 
"Eighteen," as that would be about the number necessary for that many 
men. Then, to my surprise, he asked, "How many corporals have you ?" 
" I really forget now how many," I replied; but, at last, I doubled, in my 
mind, the number of sergeants, and replied, " Thirty-six," upon which 
Hancock triumphantly turned to his adjutant, and said, "There's an 
officer, but a Captain, who's an example to you." I came near bursting 
out laughing at the ludicrousness of the thing. 

He then, in stentorian tones, ordered some two or three of his staff 
and some half-a-dozen orderlies, to start off in different directions through 
the woods, and up and down the road, to hunt up and bring in the officer 
commanding the tool- wagon; and at that dead hour of the night, raining 



348 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

as it was, to bring it there at once ; and in less than fifteen minutes, a 
wagon of shovels and picks was brought there, and the sanie distributed 
among the detail I commanded. 

While the men were receiving the picks and shovels, Hancock again 
popped his head out from the. back of the ambulance, and calling me to 
him, said : *' Captain, the pontoon-train is stalled some distance below 
here; and I want you, with your detail, to get them up in time, so that 
the bridge can be laid by daylight, ready for the troops to cross ;" mean- 
ing the Rappahannock river at United States Ford. I replied *' Yes, sir," 
and turned away, and was about proceeding to get my detail in order 
for marching, down the road, where the pontoons were, when out came 
the head again from under the cover, and, in a sharper tone, called, 
•' Captain, do you understand ? You are to get those pontoons up in time 
to lay the bridge, by daylight, in the morning." " Yes, sir," said I, " I 
perfectly understand." Agqin the head withdrew into the wagon, and 
again I turned towards the detail ; but scarcely had I taken a step, when 
the head popped out again, and in still sharper tones : '' Captain, do 
you understand perfectly ; you are to get those trains up, so that the 
bridge can be laid^by daylight; " continuing, "I will hold you person- 
ally responsible to get that train up ;" then, " I shall take no excuse, that 
train must come up : kill every mule in the train, but what you get it 
up." Then, in softer tones, and with a considerable degree of anxiety, 
he explained to me, that the movement of the whole army depended on 
those bridges being laid by daylight. 

The result of all this was that I left him with an idea that if I did 
not get those pontoons up that night, I had better make a blue streak 
for the North without explaining how it was that I could not get them 
up. He certainly left that impression on my mind. So we started on 
down amid a drenching rain. A tramp of about three miles down the 
muddy road brought us to where the head of the pontoon-train had 
stopped. The head of the leading wagon of the train was down in a 
gully, I should judge some forty or fifty feet deep. The rain of the 
night had made what had ordinarily been a mere stream that one could 
step across, swollen almost to a good-sized river. The head of this 
pontoon was buried in this river, and the water was rushing clear over 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 349 

the top of it, making a noise like a cataract, and in the dense wood on 
either side the men belonging to the train had camped for the night 
and gone to sleep, no doubt fully impressed with the impossibility of 
getting any further that night with their train. The noise of the talk- 
ing and the splashing of my detail awakened up the officer command- 
ing the pontoon-train, and emerging Jrom one side of the dark woods 
he inquired what the troops were for. I replied that they were to get 
the pontoon-train up, asking who was in command there. He replied 
that he was. I stated to him my order and that I was ready to go to 
work. He replied that it was absolutely impossible to get the train up. 
They had worked at it for hours before the stream had swollen to the 
extent that it then was, but without being able to accomplish it. As 
Hancock's words were still ringing in my ears about holding me per- 
sonally responsible for it, and that he would take no excuse, I told the 
officer that I was going to try it at least. He answered then, '' Oh," 
said he, ''Captain, that's all right; but it's sheer impossibility to get the 
train up, and you needn't worry yourself about orders like that ; I'll 
explain it all to the General in the morning. I've got something good 
to drink in the tent; just come in and make yourself comfortable for 
the night. I've got a nice cot, and so you had better come in and be 
comfortable for the night. Let your men make themselves comfortable 
for the night in the woods here, and when it is light enough in the 
morning for us to see what we are to do, we'll all turn to and get the 
train up." 

I gave his request a moment's thought, as it certainly was an inviting 
thing to be able to secure a good night's sleep out of the rain of that 
night ; but the peculiar tones of Hancock still ringing in my ears that 
these pontoons were to be up in time for the bridge to be laid by day- 
light, made me think it was better to make every effijrt first at getting 
the train up, before adopting the suggestion of this pontoon officer, so 
I told him, " The General's a very peculiar man. When he orders a 
thing done it has to he done, and he told me to kill every mule in your 
train but what 1 got the wagons up. Now, I'll have to kill some of 
them anyhow before I'll dare give up the job of getting the train up." 
The officer replied in a good-natured tone, but I could see by his man- 



350 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

ner that h.e supposed I was ignorant about the difficulties and could 
only be convinced after an hour or two of fruitless efifort. " Well," said 
he, "you can come in and have the drink anyhow, and I'll put the mules 
and drivers at your service;" upon which we repaired to his tent in the 
woods, a little to one side of the road, and there, drawing forth an am- 
bulance keg containing whisky, he poured me out a glass, and helped 
himself also to the commissary (that was our term for it). There a 
new idea came into my head, and I asked the officer if he could spare 
me that keg of commissary ; that with it I was certain I could get that 
pontoon-train up. He laughed and said, '' Yes," that it was at my dis- 
posal. I then went out on the road, and calling together some half 
dozen of the men of my own particular regiment, who I knew would have 
gone into the Confederate lines for a glass of whisky, yet who otherwise 
were just the men for such an occasion as that night, I told them that 
the pontoon-train had to come up if we had to kill every mule and 
carry the boats piecemeal to the river ; that I would start with them by 
giving them a drink, and occasional ones as we progressed. The drink 
being furnished, this half a dozen went to work with their axes, and in 
a few moments saplings were cut, and in less time than it takes to tell, 
numbers of them had stripped themselves st^rk naked, walked into the 
flood of boiling waters, and shoving a number of the saplings through 
the spokes of the wheels, lifted the head of this first boat sheer and 
clean out of the water, and with the assistance of some six or seven 
mule teams, doubled and trebled, slid the boat on its trucks (I say slid, 
for the soil down there was a compound of clay and sand, and in wet 
weather came up to the hub) till it reached the top of the hill. There 
a new difficulty presented itself — it was found impossible for the mules 
to pull the wagons, and to overcome this we cut off the foliage of pine 
trees, and filled the roadway some two feet thick with them, building 
fires on each side of the road to light our operations. Having thus 
succeeded in crossing a sufficient number of pontoons to lay the bridge, 
we started with these along the road leading to the river, arrived there 
in time, and the bridge was all laid by daylight in time for the troops 
to cross. We then went back and assisted in bringing up the balance 
of the train ; and in person I was passing with the last wagon by Han- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 351 

cock's quarters, when the General emerged from his ambulance, and in 
sharp tones inquired, *' Have they got those pontoon-trains up yet ?" 
and I stepped up to him and answered, " Yes, General, the bridge was 
laid by daylight. Tliis is only one of the reserve pontoon-wagons." In 
a very courteous manner he said, " I thank you, Captain ; you have 
done a good night's work." His face was all smiles ; he was very much 
pleased. Said he, " jS'ow, Captain, take your men and let them have a 
good breakfast and a reasonable amount of sleep, and then you follow 
on with them as quickly as possible." 

HANCOCK AT FREDERICKSBURG. 

" We arrived at Falmouth in front of Fredericksburg on or about the 
afternoon of the 17th of November, 1862. At that time General Lee 
with his army was somewhere in the neighborhood of Culpepper Court 
House, presumably watching all the different roads, down through 
which the Union army might pass. At Fredericksburg there was but 
a home guard with four pieces of artillery. 

On our arrival near Falmouth, a rather laughable incident occurred. 
It appeared that some of Sigel's cavalry had made a raid into Fredericks- 
burg the Sunday before, and, to guard against future operations of this 
kind, the home guard had procured these pieces of artillery. At the same 
time Lee had his scouts on our side of the river, who, coming down for 
the purpose of ascertaining the movements of our army, on their road, 
presented themselves opposite Fredericksburg. The home guard there, 
supposing them to he another lot of Sigel's cavalry, let drive into them 
with the four pieces of artillery. They, in turn, supposing the Union 
forces had got down before them, and were occupying Fredericksburg, 
turned tail and ran down the road on which we were advancing. The 
result was that the whole party ran into our lines, and were captured. 

At the commencement of this firing. General Sumner, who at that 
time commanded the second corps, immediately detailed a portion of 
our brigade, in which our regiment was included, to act as skirmishers ; 
and upon the word '' forward" being given, we cautiously advanced 
along the road and fields some hundred yards on each side of the road, 
until we came to the base of the hills, the tops of which overlooked the 



352 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

low ground of Fredericksburg opposite. The Confederate artillery-men, 
supposing they had driven off Sigel's cavalry-men, were leisurely hauling 
their guns over the ploughed field, upon which the word being conveyed 
to our rear, the battery of our brigade, commanded by Captain Pettit, 
came dashing up the hill, and before the astonished Confederate artillery- 
men on the other side could scarcely comprehend the situation, our battery 
was raining shot and shell down on them ; and in a few seconds, un- 
hitching their horses or cutting their harness, they abandoned these gung 
and made for cover behind the houses on the northern extremity of 
Fredericksburg. We made several requests to be allowed to go over 
and secure these guns, but were refused permission on account of the 
pontoons not having arrived. 

For a few days the camp of our brigade was on the Falmouth bank 
of the river. Scarcely a soul could be observed in the town of Fredericks- 
burg or on the heights back of it. About the evening of the fifth day, 
I noticed lights from camp fires on the hills that skirt the southern back 
of the town. On the next evening I noticed the range of these fires ex- 
tended ; so on, night after night, in regular succession illumination of 
their camp fires extended, until all the hill tops that skirt the back of 
the city round, were one livid glare, denoting that the whole -of Lee's 
army was confronting us. 

In the daylight of these days we noticed that they soon began throw- 
ing up breast-works, first on the tops of the hills that they occupied, 
which, being completed, they descended down the slopes of the hill and 
put long lines of breast-works there. Then the same at the base of the 
hills ; and lower works were thrown up in some places on the bare fields 
in their front. Then, boldly advancing, they commenced throwing up 
lines of breast-works on the river margin. All the while we stayed thus 
gazing at them and wondering what was to be the end of it ; and it is a 
positive fact that the day before Ave did cross the Kappahannock, one of 
their pickets cried across the river in my hearing, " Yanks, we got our 
breast-works all finished now, and we're ready for you at any time." 
The whole proceedings on our part did really look to me as though we 
had really waited until they could finish their breast- works before we 
should cross. (I give you this preface to the battle of Fredericksburg 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 353 

that an idea may be had of the difficulties we were likely to, and did 
have, simply in the mere act of crossing.) 

The crossing of the Rappahannock preparatory to the battle of Fred- 
ericksburg was begun about three o'clock on the morning of December 
13th. On the hills on our side artillery had been concentrated, bearing 
upon the foot of a street midway the town on the line of the river, and 
although there were discharges of shot and shell by complete batteries 
at a time, and for hour's duration, yet not a single boat could be laid. 
Hundreds of men and officers on our side fell thick and fast as soon as 
they debouched from the gully on our side, down which the roadway for 
the pontoon-train had been made. The Confederate sharpshooters on the 
opposite bank behind the breast- works that I have spoken of as having 
been made apparently secure against our artillery, fired at any distance ; 
and until four o'clock in the afternoon it did look as though it was a matter 
of sheer impossibility for the whole Army of the Potomac to cross against 
a mere handful of Confederate skirmishers; until finally maddened, 
some of our troops in charge of the pontoon-train shoved the boats into 
the river, and, jumping in, boldly pushed across, plying their rifles as 
they went. The landing of a few of these boats had more terror for the 
enemy than the entire artillery of the Army of the Potomac. One Confed- 
erate skirmisher could be seen springing up and hastily going to the rear 
as fast as his legs would carry him, behind houses and through the yards. 
Then could be seen squads scampering in a like manner to the rear. 

In the meantime the success of these bold movements on our part 
being apparent, others of our troops having charge of the pontoons, like- 
wise pushed ofi* and crossed the river, and in an hour's time from the 
commencement of this ferrying across the river we had the entire front, 
both up and down the river, as far as the eye could see ; and that after- 
noon and night bridges were laid at three different crossings; large 
bodies of troops were sent over, and occupied the first and second streets 
of the town running parallel to the river. Thus was accomplished the 
crossing to Fredericksburg. 

The following morning our division (the First Division of the Second 
Corps, commanded by General Hancock), crossed early; the major por- 
tion of us were drawn up along a street fronting the river. From here 
23 



354 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

a number of details were made up for skirmisher's duty np the streets 
running right angles with the river. Other details were made to report 
crossing preparatory to the movement. Considerable difficulty was ex- 
perienced in routing the enemy from the houses fronting the streets run- 
ning at right angles with the river, and it was not until that evening 
that we could see that we had possession of the entire town on the bank, 
the Confederate skirmishers retreating to their hills back of the town. 

The next morning, or the second day after our crossing, our division 
was moved up into the main street, running through the heart of the 
town parallel with the river ; the river in front of Fredericksburg, run- 
ning as nearly as I can judge east and west. After some two hours and 
a half rest, the officers of our division were called to General Hancock's 
head-quarters. There the intended movement against the enemy's position 
was e:j^lained to us, to wit : that the Second Division, I think it was, 
would go in first on our front, and get as near the Confederate hill as possi- 
ble and then lie down, when the First Division was to go through the 
Second Division, and in turn get as near the enemy's position as possible ; 
and the Third Division was in like manner to follow and go through us. 
The watchword was given to us '* Scott," after General Scott. As we 
had considerable length of streets to go through before we reached the 
fields back of Fredericksburg, and that stretched some distance in front 
of the enemy's position, the line was broken up into brigades, and these, 
passing through the different streets, turned right and left on reaching 
the rear of the town, and so joined on to one another. But this move- 
ment of our troops was not allowed to be perfected except under a terri- 
ble fire from the Confederate artillery, that seemed to have cannon particu- 
larly planted to sweep the streets through which we pushed forward ; but 
luckily for our own particular brigade their range seemed to be either 
too high or too low. 

In forming line, the second division having preceded us and gone a 
considerable distance, we made a rush forward over fences, around 
brick-kilns, down gullies, through ditches, but though out of breath, 
we never stopped until we had gained a rising ground, but within scarce- 
ly a hundred yards from the foot of the hills on which the Confederate 
artillery was posted. Here, my own particular observation, was some 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 355 

half a dozen huge guns on the crest of the hill immediately in front of me. 
My orders to my own men were to direct their rifles at tliese guns, to 
keep down their fire so that they would be able to assist the coming up 
of the succeeding lines of our troops that were to follow us. This we 
kept up for fully one hour. In the meantime, some half a dozen lines 
of our troops came up behind us, but instead of going through us, ac- 
cording to the arrangement, they immediately came up the hill and 
threw themselves on the ground behind us, until their numbers became 
so great that there was a compact mass of soldiers behind our line, some 
twenty-five or thirty feet in width, and stretching right and left as far 
as the eye could see. 

To me the wonder of the assault was that there were no generals to com- 
mand the troops. This remark, though, would not apply to Hancock's 
division, for we had gone farther towards the Confederate position than it 
was expected we would be able to go. Having performed all that was asked 
of us to do and seeing that there was likely to be a movement of the 
other troops, I laid down on my back and gazed on the events taking 
place there, watching the swarms of wounded men staggering, hopping 
and limping to the rear. 

While doing this I noticed a commotion at the head of the streets 
from which we had emerged, and presently there dashed out into the 
broad open field. General Hancock, on horse back, surrounded by his 
numerous staff, that made him a very conspicuous mark for all the artil- 
lery on the enemys hills, and, in less time than we could count ten, you 
could see the ground being ploughed by the cannon shot all around the 
road. Some idea may be given this thing: when, immediately follow- 
ing General Hancock's emergence from the head of the street, some of 
our artillery advanced and attempted replying to the cannon of the enemy 
on the hills, but the Confederates having a considerable downhill range, 
forced the artillery of ours to leave after firing scarcely a round. Such 
was the inspiration of the moment caused by Hancock's gallantry that if 
the command " forward " had then been given to all the troops, I have 
not the slightest idea but that all positions of the Confederate line on 
hills in our front capable of being climbed, would have been taken. 



356 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 



CHAPTER XL 

MRS. SURRATT. 

EVERY living American, North and South, likes 
to describe his special sensation at the time of 
the news of the murder of Abraham Lincoln, 
at Washington, on the night of April 14th, 1865. 
No individual event ever created such a shock 
throughout the civilized world. The daily record 
of the death of great men, of suicides, murders, 
shipwrecks, steamboat explosions, and conflagra- 
tions, hardly affects us: but the sudden killing of 
the unpretending President of the United States 
affected mankind at the same moment with a 
matchless horror. I never met an American who 
could not tell some story connected with that 
tragedy, and some personal revelation of exactly 
at what time and place he heard of it. 

I heard of it at Richmond, on Saturday, the 
15th of April, 1865, where I had been sent by 
Mr. Lincoln a few days before, with letters to the 
General in command, directing me to go with him 
and see the editors of the city and induce them to 
re-organize their newspapers, and to encourage 



WINFIELB SCOTT HANCOCK. 357 

them to support the restored authority of the 
Ucited States. Among my traveling companions 
were the present Speaker of the House of Repre- 
sentatives of the United States, Hon. Samuel J. 
Randall, the Hon. Emanuel B. Hart, of New 
York, the late General George M. Lauman, of 
Pennsylvania, and several others. After this 
news we returned to Washington by the earliest 
conveyance. On Sunday we reached the na- 
tional capital to find Vice-president Andrew 
Johnson, installed in the presidency, holding his 
receptions at the Kirkwood House, while the dead 
body of the martyr was lying in the Presidential 
mansion, preparatory to that marvellous funeral, 
extending through all the states between Wash- 
ington, the national capital, and Springfield, the 
capital of Illinois. 

The idea, if not the apprehension of assassination 
was more or less before the mind of Abraham Lin- 
coln, from the day of his election, November, 1860, 
to the day of his death, on the 14th of April, 1865. 
He did not seem to fear death, but there was so much 
written against him, and so much said to do him in- 
jury, and there was such an ingenuity of invention 
among those who did not know or did not like him, 
"that even a calmer philosopher than himself would 
have been forced to pay some attention to a con- 
sideration that was more or less forced before his 
own and present in other minds. The reader 
will perceive that from the time he left Illinois on 



358 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

the way to Washington, on the 11th of February, 
I860, to his arrival at the National Capitol, the 
ghost of murder seemed to track his steps, and yet 
travelling with this ghost was the angel of forgive- 
ness, as if sent as his holy sentinel. 

At Indianapolis, he said '^ The question is, shall 
the Union and shall the liberties of this country be 
preserved to the latest generation?" In the Indi- 
anapolis State House, he said, at the same time, 
"What mysterious right to play tyrant is conferred 
on a district of country by its people by merely calling 
it a State?" At Cincinnati, ^'We mean to treat 
you as nearly as we possibly can as Washington, 
Jefferson and Madison treated you." At Co- 
lumbus, "It is a consoling circumstance that when 
we look out there is really nothing that hurts any- 
body." At Steubenville, "If I adopt a wrong 
policy, the opportunity for condemnation will occur 
in four years time." At Pittsburg, "As a rule, I 
think it better that Congress should originate, as 
well as perfect, its measures, without external 
bias." At Buffalo, he expressed the hope that he 
might be able "to relieve the country from the 
present, or, as I should say, the threatened 
difficulties. 

At Albany, " When the time comes I shall speak 
for the good, both of the North and South of this 
country, for the good of the one and the other, 
and for all sections of the country." At New 
York, " I am sure I bring a heart devoted to the 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 359 

work." At Philadelphia he made the declaration 
which seemed to presage his assassination: " This 
is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of 
Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the 
people of this country, but I hope to the world for 
all future time, and if this country cannot be 
saved without giving up that principle — I was 
about to say — I would rather be assassinated on 
the spot than surrender it." And on the very day 
before he was assassinated this was his language, 
after having received the news of the capture of 
Richmond : " Let us all join in doing the acts ne- 
cessary to restore the proper practical relations 
between the Southern states and the nation, and 
each forever after innocently indulging in his owij 
opinion, whether in doing the acts he brought the 
states from without into the Union, or only gave 
them proper assistance, they never having been 
out of it." 

President Johnson, full of honest grief for a 
death which opened his way to four years of dis- 
turbed executive power, was also full of anger, 
and if you will turn to his speeches, particularly 
that to the Indiana Delegation, you will see how 
sweeping this anger was, and how indiscriminate 
his charges against the people of the South, who 
mourned the loss of Lincoln as if he had been one 
of themselves, as indeed he was their best friend. 
The story of the capture of Booth need not be 
repeated, nor the fate of his confederates, nor the 



360 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

attempt to kill Secretary Seward. What concerns 
General Hancock is the fact that when Mrs. 
Surratt, convicted for being accessory to the 
great crime, was executed, the General had been 
recalled from Winchester, where, as I have said, 
he was stationed with his great corps, waiting to 
carry forward certain decisive operations rendered 
unnecessary by the catastrophe to the Confederacy. 
The officer who had immediate charge of Mrs. 
Surratt was General John F. Hartranft, of Penn- 
sjdvania. The Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, 
who, like the President, was greatly excited 
against the authors of the assassination, and in 
accordance with the prevailing public opinion, 
demanded their condign punishment. In most 
all political excitements, as our own experience 
has shown, a soldier is frequently called upon to 
carry out unpleasant orders from his civil superiors. 
General Grant himself has had more than one of 
these dilemmas to meet, and when General Han- 
cock was placed in command of the Washington 
Department, he found himself in the midst of a wild 
unreasoning phrenzy. No one was more resolute, 
more obdurate and unapproachable, than President 
Johnson himself as his order directing-the execution 
of Mrs. Surratt will show. General Hancock did 
not hesitate to express his great repugnance at 
the unpleasant duty forced upon him. Hence 
when Judge Clampitt, now of Chicago, Mrs. 
Surratt's leading counsel in 1865, visited Wash- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 361 

ingtoii some weeks ago, and stated the following, 
which was printed in Don Piatt's Washington 
Capital, he simply reveals what is equally well 
known to myself: 

"Hancock," continued Judge Clampitt, "had no more to do with 
these details or matters than you had. When Judge W^ylie, with a 
Roman majesty of character, issued, almost at the peril of his life, the 
writ of habeas corpus in the case of Mrs. Surratt, President Johnson and 
Secretary Stanton decided to suspend the writ, and the execution fol- 
lowed. 

"We had hopes to the last of a reprieve and a pardon for Mrs. Sur- 
ratt, and I waited at the arsenal, hoping against hope. General Han- 
cock rode down, and approaching him, I asked, 'Are there any hopes?' 
He shook his head slowly and mournfully, and, with a sort of gasping 
catch in his speech, said : * I am afraid not. No ; there is not.' 

''He then walked oif a bit — he had dismounted — and gave some 
orders to his orderlies, and walked about for a moment or two. Re- 
turning, he said to me : 

" ' I have been in many a battle, and have seen death and mixed with 
it in disaster and in victory. I've been in a living hell of fire, and 
shell, and grape-shot; and, by God! I'd sooner be there ten thousand 
times over than to give the order this day for the execution of that poor 
woman. But I am a soldier, sworn to obey, and obey I must." 

" This is the true and genuine history of all that Hancock had in 
common with the affair. He was commanding, and as commander and 
conservator of the National Capital, was compellantly obedient to the 
orders of the Court, which sentenced the conspirators and the so-called 
conspirator to death. He had no voice in the matter, and could have 
no action save as the agent to see that the letter of the law was carried 
out in an order of alphabetic certainty." 

The attempt to make General Hancock respon- 
sible for the execution of Mrs. Surratt^ is as infa- 



362 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

mous as the effort to make the Southern j)eople 
responsible for the murder of Mr. Lincohi. It 
is worse than to condemn the officer who obeyed 
General Washington's order and officiated at the 
death of Andre. Apart from all questions of 
guilt in either case, the really innocent parties 
were, of course, those who had nothing to do with 
the punished offence. In the case of Mrs. Surrat, 
Hancock obeyed his Chief, the president ; in the 
case of Lincoln, the murderer was an infuriated 
lunatic ; in the case of Andre, the officer present at 
his execution obeyed George Washington. 

The attempt to make General Hancock respon- 
sible for the execution of Mrs. Surratt is so vile 
that even the Eepublican papers, reckless as to all 
other things, recoil from it as from a leprosy. 
Her death was the decree of a party furore, 
almost a delirium at the time. The multitude 
wanted a sacrifice, a victim, a Paschal lamb. The 
loss of Lincoln made the North mad and stunned 
the South. It was not an act of decreed revenge. 
The man shot was shot by a maniac even as that 
man pleaded that that maniac might be restored 
to reason. And many of the partisans who really 
made the frenzy under which Mrs. Surratt died 
realize their mistake, and, like all such natures, 
they now reverse a sense of justice, after the lapse 
of years, to coolly try to fix the crime, as they 
confess it, upon an innocent man ! This, to use 
a profane illustration, is like Pontius Pilate blaming 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 363 

the most innocent of the apostles for the cruci- 
fixion ! 

A few more facts will serve to expose and blast 
this monstrous wrong 

Mr. John W. Clampitt, Mrs. Surratt's attorney, 
offers, in further vindication of General Hancock, 
a paper published in the New York Herald of the 
28th of July, 1880. Nothing could be more con- 
clusive. 

GENEEAii Hancock's position. 
It is true that the order of the President directing the execution of 

the condemned parties was transmitted through the commandant of 
the military post to Major General Hartranft, who had been designated 
by the President in executive order, dated May 1, 1865, (as above, 
quoted), as a special provost marshal for the purposes of said trial and 
attendance upon said commission and the execution of its mandates. It 
could not have been otherwise in feature and form, from the very nature 
of the military organization of the government and its regulations and 
rules of procedure. General Hancock was in command of a geographi- 
cal military division, comprising several States, of which Washington 
City, where his headquarters had been located by the President's order, 
was a part at the time Mrs. Surratt was sentenced to death. Being 
chief in command of that military division the order of the President, 
through the War Department, had inevitably to pass through him for 
transmission to the officer specially designated by the same authority 
(Ex. Order, May 1, 1865,) to execute the mandates of the cojnmission 
that condemned Mrs. Surratt to death. 

It is a notable fact that Brevet Major General Hartranft, and not 
Major General Hancock, gave the verbal order of execution, after first 
reading, while standing on the platform beside the prisoners, the finding 
of the military commission and the President's order of approval. 

THE RESPONSIBILITY. 

I was an eye-witness to the execution, and assert these facts as beyond 
contradiction. In this General Hartranft performed his duty as the 



364 LIFE AND 1 UBLIC CAREER Of 

subordinate officer of the President, from whom he had derived the 
powers as special provost marshal. The functions of General Hancock 
were purely ministerial as the " commandant of the military post," &c., 
and not judicial, and he took no part in the execution. The act, which 
was performed in obedience to an order of the President, was not 
Hancock's act, but the act of his superior, liaving power to command. 
The President's order for the execution of Mrs. Surratt was not the 
order of Hancock, but was the President's order, and was made on the 
responsibility of the President. The responsibility of that order rested 
with Andrew Johnson and his ill-advisers, and Andrew Johnson is in 
his grave. 

CHARGES DENIED. 

As the counsel of Mrs. Surratt I can testify to my own knowledge 
that he was deeply moved in her behalf and distressed on her account. 
As to the point whether on the morning of the execution of Mrs. Sur- 
ratt he refused her the privilege of having the spiritual consolation of 
lier religion by denying her the assistance of a priest ; this charge I 
know to be untrue, and it is effectually refuted by the testimony of the 
Rev. J. A. AValter, her spiritual adviser, which Has come to my know- 
ledge. This testimony is in the form of a letter addressed by Father 
Walter to General Hancock, dated Wasnington, November 14, 1879, 
which has been published, in which he completely refutes the charge. 
I quote a portion of his letter as follows, to-wit : — 

* I am at a loss how to account for this maliciou:^ cport. I have always 
believed you to be too much of a Christian and i,'entleman to suppose 
for a moment that you would interfere with any one's religious feelings, 
much less in the case of this unfortunate lady for whom you showed 
much sympathy. Duty which I owe to truth, and strict justice to you, 
compel me to deny those false charges and exonerate you from all 
blame.' 

In corroboration of the foregoing explicit statement «of Eev. J. A. 
Walter, I can add my own testimony establishing the fact of the pres- 
ence of her spiritual advisers; as on the morning of the execution, and 
just previous to that terrible event, when I came to bid her ''Good -by," 
and pressed her hand in parting, it was in the presence of Fathers 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 365 

Walter and Wiget, whose holy serenity seemed to fill her cell with a 
heavenly light. 

THE HABEAS CORPUS. 

As to the charge that General Hancock refused to obey the writ of 
habeas corpus, sued out by me as the counsel of Mrs. Surratt before 
Judge Wylie, I know this to be wholly groundless. The records of the 
Court show that on the morning of the execution, upon proper applica- 
tion, at the early hour of two o'clock, Judge Wylie with characteristic 
firmness issued the writ of habeas corpus, ordering the commandant of 
the military district in which she was confined to produce the body of 
Mrs. Surratt in his court at ten o'clock (the liour of execution having 
been named in the order as between ten A. M. and two o'clock, p. m. of 
the same day). This writ was by me handed to the Marshal of the 
District of Columbia, at a very early hour in the morning'. It is a fact 
sustained by the records of the court, that General Hancock appeared 
in obedience to that summons before His Honor Judge Wylie, accom- 
panied by the Attorney General of the United States, who, as the repre- 
sentative of the President, presented to Judge Wylie the following 
return, which was an executive order suspending the writ of habeas 
corpus, to wit: — 

Executive Office, July 7, 1865 — 11 o'clock, A. m. J 
To Major General W. S. Hancock, Commanding, &c. : — 

I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do hereby declare 
that the writ of habeas corpus has been heretofore suspended in such 
cases as this, and I do hereby especially suspend this writ, and direct 
that you proceed to execute the order heretofore given upon the judg- 
ment of the military commission, and you will give this order in return 
to this writ. ANDREW JOHNSON, 

President. 

It is thus seen how false is the charge that General Hancock refused 
to obey the writ issued by Judge Wylie. The very reverse is the truth* 
Not only did he obey the writ so far as he was permitted to do so, thus 
subordinating the military to the civil power of the government, but so 
prompt and clear was the performance of his duty in- the estimation of 
the Court that Judge Wylie complimented him on his ready obedience 



366 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

to the civil authority, and discharged him from the process because of 
his own inability to enforce the order of the Court. Judge Wylie ac- 
quiesced in the suspension of his writ by the President and declined to 
go any further. General Hancock's appearance before the Judge 
showed his respect for the civil process of the Court, and it became his 
duty to present to the Judge the order of the President suspending the 
writ and to know wdiether he would submit to or reject the suspension 
of the writ. If Judge Wylie had said that he would consider the ques- 
tion of validity of the order suspending the writ Avhen Mrs. Surratt 
was brought before him and directed her to be brought into court, Gen- 
eral Hancock would doubtless have produced the body. But the Judge, 
complimenting the General for his respect for the civil authority, dis- 
missed his proceedings here. There was not the slightest show of any 
disposition on the part of General Hancock to resist the civil process of 
the Court. The charge, therefore, that he refused to obey the writ is 
without the slightest foundation in truth. No one can at this time re- 
alize the extent of the popular frenzy and clamor for the execution of 
the parties condemned ; and Judge Wylie showed great judicial integ- 
rity in awarding the writ at all under the circumstances. Had the 
order of the Court extended further, and Judge Wylie insisted upon 
the production before him of the body of Mrs. Surratt notwithstanding 
the order of the President, General Hancock might then have been 
chargeable with disobeying the process had he refused ; but no such 
further order was made and General Hancock was dismissed by the 
Court from the process. What else could he have done? While he 
acted under the orders of the President he submitted to and showed due 
respect for the judicial authority. 

THE APPLICATION FOR PARDON. 

The question asked in newspaper discussions. Why General Hancock 
was present at the Arsenal on the morning of the execution, is easily 
answered. The application for a pardon for Mrs. Surratt was expected 
to be renewed that morning, and that on his own suggestion, and he 
deemed it proper to be at a convenient place to afford his aid in case of 
a pardon. I was myself on the ground and deeply interested in all 
that occurred at that time, and I know the fact that General Hancock 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 367 

afforded to Mrs. Surratt every kindness in his power, and was anxious 
that she should be spared by a pardon, and he hoped for it up to the 
very last. And when Miss Anna Surratt called upon him at his hotel 
early on the morning of the execution, and asked him what she could 
do to save the life of her mother, he replied, " that there was but 
one thing remaining for her to do, and that was to go to the President, 
throw herself on her knees before him and beg for the life of her mother." 
She did not ask General Hancock to accompany her to the President, 
nor could it have been expected, as that would be improper in him. 
And it was unnecessary, as her protector, Mr. Brophy, was with her. 
It has been stated that Miss Surratt thought his manner cold. His lan- 
guage to her certainly should convey any other idea. He was at that 
moment in a state of great perplexity as to the disposition of the writ of 
habeas corpus which had been served upon him and suspended by the 
President, and he had but little time to make answer and return the 
same. To this fact may be ascribed his serious manner, taken for cold- 
ness. The facts show that so deeply was General Hancock moved in 
the matter that his feelings led him to believe it possible for the Presi- 
deitt to relent at the last moment ; and should the President so act, that 
the reprieve might not arrive too late, but be borne swiftly on its mis- 
sion of mercy, General Hancock had couriers stationed at points from 
the White House to the Arsenal, in order that if a pardon or respite 
should be issued by the President at the last moment it should reach its 
destination promptly and before the execution. This is the evidence of 
General W. G. Mitchell, chief of General Hancock's staff. This evi- 
dence is corroborated by the sworn testimony of Mr. John P. Brophy, 
now at St. Louis College, New York, and at that time a resident of 
Washington City. Mr. Brophy was a friend of the family, and after the 
imprisonment of the mother he befriended the daughter Anna. On the 
the morning of the execution he met her at the Executive Mansion in 
the hope of seeing the President, whither she had gone at the suggestion 
of General Hancock to beg the life of her mother, Mr. Brophy, who 
did all in his power to befriend the hapless girl and aid the mother in 
her sorrowful condition, and who is a gentleman of high char- 
acter, testifies, under oath, as to the humanity displayed by General 



o 



68 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 



Hancock toward the unfortunate mother and daughter on the morning 
of the execution. The following are extracts from his sworn statement : 

" On our way from the White House to the Arsenal I noticed mount- 
ed soldiers at intervals along the route." These were the couriers sta- 
tioned by order of General Hancock to convey to him any notice of 
reprieve froin the President. At the Arsenal gate, he accompanied 
Anna Surratt to bid her mother farewell, met General Hancock, who 
spoke to Anna, and, in a voice of subdued sadness told her that he 
feared there was no hope of Executive clemency. He informed Mr. 
Brophy that he had, however, stationed mounted men all along the line 
to the White House, for the purpose of hastening the tidings should the 
President at the last moment relent and grant a reprieve for Mrs. 
Surratt. He also stated to Mr. Brophy that, should a reprieve be grant- 
ed by the President, it might be directed to him as Commandant of the 
Department, and he would be at the Arsenal till the last moment to 
give effect to the same should it arrive. 

Mr. Brophy further states that he is " impelled by a sense of duty to 
add his testimony to other in vindication of one who has been most un- 
justly assailed for alleged misconduct of which no brave man could 
possibly be guilty. Tliat he is not a politician, but loves justice and 
feels that he has done an act of simple justice to as knightly a warrior 
as ever * saluted with his spotless sword the sacred majesty of the law.'" 

And now, my dear sir, I believe I have covered all the points of your 
inquiry in as brief and candid a manner as the importance and gravity 
of the subject demanded. 

GENERAL HANCOCK NOT RESPONSIBLE. 

There are many facts connected with the trial and execution which I 
have omitted as not within the scope of our inquiry. This much, how- 
ever, is fully established — that General Hancock was in no wise respon- 
sible for the organization of the military commission that condemned 
Mrs. Surratt to death ; that her trial and execution rested entirely on 
the will and determination of the President and his constitutional advi- 
sers, and that General Hancock in all matters pertaining to the same 
had no discretion or responsibility whatsoever, nor could he, from his 
official position, have influenced or controlled them in the slightest de- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 369 

gree. He never attended the sessions of the commission, but was busily 
engaged in the diversified and extensive cares of the military command 
which required his entire time and attention. As I attended the com- 
mission every day of the trial I know that he was never seen about the 
rooms of the commission. General Hartranft attended on the commis- 
sion daily, and this he did as special provost marshal, so as to be under 
the immediate direction of the President and Secretary of War, instead 
of the military commandant of the post. 

DICTATES OF PARTY. 

In conclusion permit a single reflection. The trial and execution 
spoken of were demanded at the time by the whole Kepublican party. 
The intensity of the public feeling and the infuriated demand for the 
execution of the condemned parties cannot now be realized, and Presi- 
dent Johnson, Secretary Stanton and Judge Advocate General Holt, 
who had the entire control of the matter, were acting under the dictates 
of that political party and simply carrying out its imperative demands. 
How humiliating to the intellect of the country the reflection that the 
same political party that had the entire responsibility for the atrocious 
murder of that innocent woman should now, for mere political effect, 
attempt falsely and most wrongfully to injure a brave soldier, who so 
often perilled his life to save the Union, by charging upon him miscon- 
duct for having in some way participated in that act which that whole 
party demanded and approved at the time ! 

Respectfully yours, 

John W. Clampitt, 



370 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 



CHAPTER XII. 

DExMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONTENTION. 

THE nomination of Gen. Hancock at the Cincin- 
nati Convention on the 23d of June, 1880, was 
spontaneous, if not unexpected. It was in no one 
sense the result of organization. It had no estab- 
lished bureau, literary or financial. It came from 
two States, widely separated, from Vermont in the 
far East, and South Carolina in the far South. It 
is therefore the double harbinger of Union. It is 
the union of sentiment and sections. It is the 
union of Federal and Confederate, of the veteran 
that fought for and the veteran that fought against 
the old flag. It is the union of an ultra-Eepublican 
with an ultra-Democratic community. 

Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, on the 26th 
of January, 1830, in the Senate of the United 
States, in his reply to Robert Y. Hayne of South 
Carolina, used these celebrated words, which apply 
with singular fidelity to the two commonwealths 
that started for Hancock. Paraphrase this splen- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 371 

did passage, substitute Vermont for Massachusetts, 
and see how apposite they are to-day : 

" Sir, let me recur to pleasant recollections. Let me indulge in 
refreshing remembrances of the past. Let me remind you that in early- 
times no states cherished greater harmony, both of principle and feeling, 
than Vermont and South Carolina. Would to God that harmony might 
again return ! Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Revolution; 
hand in hand they stood around the administration of Washington, and 
felt his own great arm lean on them for support. The bones of their 
sons falling in the great struggle for independence now lie mingled with 
the soil of every State from New England to Georgia, and there they 
lie forever." 

Dougherty's great speech nominating hancock. " 
On the 23d of June, 1880, Daniel Dougherty 
of Philadelphia, to whom a place in the Conven- 
tion had been assigned by Mr. Spear, delegate from 
one of the Pennsylvania counties, made the speech 
nominating General Hancock, with which his 
name will always be associated. Never was the 
Democratic party more fully represented by its 
ablest and strongest men than in the National 
Convention at Cincinnati, in June, 1880. The 
President of that great deliberation, John W. 
Stevenson, of Kentucky, son of the well-known 
Andrew Stevenson, of Virginia, for six years 
Speaker of the National House of Representatives, 
afterwards American Minister to Great Britain, 
recalled the dignity and force of his historic father, 
and the other men from the different States were 
all chosen with an eye alike to individual strength 
and national success. 



372 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

The appearance of Mr. Dougherty in a Demo- 
cratic National Convention, the first time in more 
than twenty years, revived to the hundreds who 
had known him in past days, the young, impas- 
sioned and irresistible orator, who in 1856 electri- 
fied Pennsylvania by his fresh and captivating 
eloquence in favor of James Buchanan, the Demo- 
cratic candidate for President. Here he renewed 
the friendships of other days, and without apolo- 
gizing for his patriotic course during the civil 
war, met them like brethren, and they met 
him wdth something more than admiration in 
the warm affection springing from confidence in 
his integrity and intellectual superiority. Like 
many others in this convention, Dougherty had 
voted for Lincoln and for Grant, and he represents 
as he did when he severed his connection wdth the 
Democratic party in 1858, a vast constituency. 

He was born in Philadelphia, and has lived there 
fifty-three years. He was the intimate friend of 
most of the contemporaneous statesmen of his 
time, and, apart from his eloquence as a popular 
orator, his wit, his patriotism and personal indepen- 
dence, made him a favorite in all circles. He has 
grown into a profitable practice at his profession 
of the law, and is one of the most honored men 
in our country. Indeed, I know no more spot- 
less and exemplary citizen. Certainly there never 
was one whose public acts were less controlled by 
private considerations. His sole ambition in pub- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 373 

lie life has been to sacrifice everything like party 
to the preservation of the American Union, and to 
that end he has labored with ceaseless energy. 
It was that which induced him to join the friends 
of Judge Douglas in 1860; it was that which 
made him support Abraham Lincoln in 1864, that 
which led him to support Grant in 1868, and again 
in 1872. No effort was too great, no sacrifice too 
costly, if by that he could serve his country; and 
like thousands more be does not consign the whole 
Democratic party to ignominy because of the 
war, thus following the illustrious examples of 
Abraham Lincoln and Charles Sumner ; thus, while 
loving the Union and the Constitution with all his 
natural fervor, he was among the first to urge the 
return and the forgiveness of the Confederates. Nor 
did he accept the republicans as the infallible physi- 
cians to cure the nation's ills. He had known too 
many of the true-hearted men of the South in bet- 
ter days to place them forever out of the pale of his 
sympathy, and he was too familiar with thousands 
of the so-called Northern leaders not to feel that 
many of them used the opportunities of civil war to 
enrich themselves and to j^unish men who did not 
praise their companionsl Time only served to add 
to his sympathie for the misguided men of the 
South and to increases his distrust of most of the 
reckless Republican partisans of the North. No 
independent voter accustomed to the sad experi- 
ence of the Republican party in Pennsylvania 



374 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

within the last ten years, can fail to realize the 
justice of this view of Dougherty's character, and to 
make it the pattern of his own. 

He had seen the corruption in State Legislatures, 
the terrorism in our great cities under which the 
worst men were put in office and the best kept in 
private positions, the elections turned into open 
frauds, and the public press forced to support no- 
minations and measures which the editors detested, 
but were driven to sustain under pain of poverty 
and ostracism. Naturally he turned for relief to 
his old party, the party he had known and loved 
before the war. General Hancock was his friend, 
had fought for his country, was acceptable to the 
South, was a native son of Pennsylvania, and was 
the man of all others to begin the work of recon- 
ciliation. 

Mr. Dougherty, inspired by this leading purpose 
of his life, went to Cincinnati in 1880, as he had 
gone to Cincinnati in 1856, to help a candidate 
who, besides being his own neighbor, was, as he 
believed, the very best instrument to promote 
peace among all the people North and South. 
James Buchanan disappointed Dougherty and a 
vast community of Democrats of the same patriotic 
school twenty-four years before. Winfield S. Han- 
cock comes now with an unblemished character, 
national views, an incomparable battle record, 
to heal the wounds of war, to bring the people of all 
parties and classes in our happy Union together 



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WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 377 

once more. These were the motives which inspired 
Dougherty's oration at Cincinnati on the 23d of 
June. 

I quote from the eloquent pen of Alexander K. 
McClure, in the " ^Philadelphia Times;' of the 24th 
of that month : 

The grand occasion of the day was when Dougherty surpassed him- 
self in all the attributes of a popular orator in presenting General 
Hancock. He received a royal welcome when he took the speaker's 
platform, and he bore himself most gracefully during the ordeal. A 
dead silence followed, and then Dougherty's voice rang throughout the 
vast hall clear as the notes of a silver bell. Without exordium or any 
prefatory remarks, he at once grappled with his theme and touched the 
heart of his audience. As an oratorical effort it captivated by its ele- 
gance alike in matter and in manner, and as an impressive and powerful 
appeal to a great body of representative men it will be remembered with 
Ingersoll's presentation of Blaine in 1876 and Conkling's presentation of 
Grant at Chicago. It differed as much from both of those exceptionally 
great efforts as they differed from each other, but it had as distinctive 
merits as can be claimed for them, and will stand in imperishable associ- 
ation with them in our political literature. When he reached the climax 
of his peroration and named Hancock the scene was indescribable. It 
was the first time that any more than a regulation applause of the con- 
vention had been invoked, and for nearly a quarter of an hour the dele- 
gates and galleries displayed the wildest enthusiasm. It proved that 
the heart of the great audience was for Hancock, as the heart of the 
Chicago assembly was for Blaine, and a master-hand had touched the 
chords and drawn out the fullest tones. It was a revelation to the con- 
vention, for it told for the first time how strong the Pennsylvania 
Democratic soldier was in the supreme tribunal of the national Demo- 
cracy. Hancock was fortunate in the followers of his chief advocate- 
Daniel, of Virginia, a one-legged Confederate soldier, who had con- 
fronted Hancock on the field, seconded Hancock's nomination in a speech 



378 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

that ranked second only to Dougherty's in brevity, eloquence and power, 
and Hubbard, of Texas, another Confederate warrior, followed in a 
handsome tribute to the gallant soldier he had met in the flame of battle. 
These appeals bore rich and speedy fruit, as was proved in Hancock's 
leading vote on the ballot taken soon after. 

''The convention was a school of eloquence. One might have 
fancied himself in the grove of the Academy, listening to the rich and 
lofty style of Plato mingled with the clear, solid sentences of Demos- 
thenes. With a voice sweet as the jEolian harp, and yet powerful and 
far reaching, Voorhees set forth the claims of Indiana's favorite son. 
McSweeny had a fitting theme for the exercise of his massive intellect 
in the exalted character of that great and genial man, whom the State 
of Ohio has lent to the Republic to be princeps senaius. The claims of 
the eminent jurist from the Pacific coast, and of the other distinguished 
gentleman named for the Presidency, were set forth in glowing and 
eloquent terms. 

" The name of Hancock had not yet been mentioned. There was a 
yearning in that vast audience for soma one to step forward and pro- 
nounce his name ' with all that it implied.' Our old friend, Daniel 
Dougherty, proved equal to the grand occasion. His sentences flowed 
clear and musical as the tones of a silver trumpet. Dwelling in brief 
terms on the patriotic career of Pennsylvania's great son and soldier, he 
touched with a master hand a chord that was uppermost in the hearts 
of that vast assemblage. The effect was thrilling. Never were the 
artistic graces of oratory displayed to better advantage or with more 
powerful effect. Hancock's nomination was the fitting response. 

Dougherty was followed by Daniel of Virginia, Breckinridge of 
Kentucky, Hubbard of Texas, and others, whose speeches were marked 
by great oratorical power and polished culture.'' 

Now comes the genuine text of Daniel Dough- 
erty's speech, nominating General Hancock for the 
Presidency, at Cincinnati, June 23d, 1880. There 
have been some misprints, but this gives the 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 379 

exact words of a memorable utterance. Wonder- 
ful is the gift of speech ! It sways more than music, 
because it is articulate inspiration. Mere harmony 
is one thing, but intellectual harmony is like put- 
ting words into the songs of the birds, or the sighs 
of the sweet South breathing over a bank of violets. 
Short speeches win most votes. The rhetoric of 
conventions is a special study. A¥e hear of quick 
effusions at the bar, and the church ; but the heart 
of the people pours out in their quadrennial Presi- 
dential conclaves; and in these vast love-feasts,where 
men strive and contrive for the high seats in the 
Kepublic, such marvellous appeals read like the 
voices of the gods when men were supposed to 
speak from on high. Such was Joseph Holt's 
w^onderful speech at Baltimore, when he saved 
Richard M. Johnson from defeat for the renomina- 
tion as the Democratic candidate for Vice-President. 
I heard it as a boy. Holt is now an old man in 
Washington, and when he spoke he was the greatest 
orator in the Southwest, dividing the honors with 
Sargent S. Prentiss, W. C. Preston, and Bascom, 
the Methodist preacher. It was so resplendent 
that it electrified Horace Greelej^, and he embalmed 
it in his New Yorker. What a flame of eloquence, 
pure, fervid, bewildering ! Then I heard James 
Dobbin, of North Carolina, nominating Franklin 
Pierce at Baltimore, another outburst of classic 
beauty that swept the delegates like the chords of 
a great organ. Alas, too, how different the heart- 



380 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

broken plea of Kufus Clioate before the Whigs in 
the same year, 1852, for Daniel Webster. It was 
like the young Raphael pleading for the old Angelo 
before a circle of withered cardinals. And 
when General Scott got the Whig nomination 
Choate voted for Pierce, and followed it by his sup- 
port of Buchanan in 1856. I thought the day of 
Convention oratory was over till Robert G. Ingersoll 
set the Republicans on fire for Blaine at Cincinnat 
in 1876, and Roscoe Conkling proved his sincere- 
devotion to Grant at Chicago in 1880, and 
Dougherty made his magnificent coup for Hancock 
last June in Cincinnati. They are interesting 
features and facts of history, and show that elo- 
quence is not extinct in this country, and that 
after all American politics have other and higher 
uses for our youth than to be the burden-bearers 
of ignorant machine-men, or mean sleuth-hounds 
seeking and finding places for themselves: 

"I present to the tlionglitfnl consideration of the convention, the 
name of one who, on the field of battle, was styled ' the superb,' yet 
won still nobler renown as the Military Governor, whose first act, in 
assuming command in Louisiana and Texas, was to salute the Constitu- 
tion ! by proclaiming amid the joyous greetings of an oppressed people, 
that the military, save in actual war, shall be subservient to the civil 
power. 

''The plighted word of the soldier was proved in the deeds of the 
statesman. 

*' I name one who, if nominated, will suppress every faction, and be 
alike acceptable to the North and to the South. Whose nomination 
will thrill the land from end to end, crush the last embers of sectional 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK, 381 

strife, and be hailed as the dawning of the longed-for day of perpetual 
brotherhood. 

"With him we can fling away our shields and wage aggressive war. 
With him as our chieftain the bloody banner of the Republicans will 
fall from their palsied grasp. We can appeal to the supreme tribunal 
of the American people against the corruptions of the Republican 
party and its untold violations of Constitutional liberty. 

*' Oh ! ray countrymen ! in this supreme moment, — the destinies of 
the Republic, — the imperilled liberties of the people, hang breathless 
on your deliberations — pause ! reflect ! beware ! make no misstep ! 

" I nominate him who can carry every Southern State. Can carry 
Pennsylvania, Indiana, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. The 
soldier statesman with a record stainless as his sword. I nominate 
Winfield Scott Hancock, of Pennsylvania. If elected he will take his 
seat." 

Bat there were other men in the Democratic 
National Convention, in June of 1880, men as far 
separated after the civil war, as any that served 
in the previous Republican Convention at Chicago, 
men as different from each other as the States from 
which they came, men from both shores of the 
ocean, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, men from 
the borders of our inland seas North and South, 
men from the White Mountains and the Rocky 
Mountains, men from the Granite Hills and the 
Southern cotton fields, types of all ideas and races. 
Dougherty was among the best representative of 
that school, which reared in the belief of a perfect 
Democracy, recoiled from the slightest attempt to 
imperil the Constitution of the Union. Others 
from New England reared to the habits and opin- 



382 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

ions of John Langdon, of New Hampsliire, some 
from California, full of a gigantic feature, delegates 
of moderate ideas of the conservative Middle State 
of Pennsylvania, and of course from the South, 
the natural politicians of the past, and still 
the leaders of what is left of the lost cause. Among 
these latter, let me mention the name of Major 
John W. Daniel of Virginia, who made a speech 
almost as characteristic as that of Mr. Dougherty, 
when he seconded Dougherty's nomination of Han- 
cock for the Presidency. The ancestors of Daniel 
were the best of the Constitutional school of his 
name, among them Peter Yyvian Daniel, the famous 
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. 
I mention Major Daniel, because, like Roger A. 
Pryor, he is one of the witnesses to prove that the 
recent Confederate States are not only pledged, in 
the language of the South Carolina Democrats, to 
abide by the amendments of the National Constitu- 
tion, but to promote the great work of conciliation 
between the sections. At present many Republicans 
stand ready to vote for Hancock, but hesitate before 
the apparition raised by the ring politicians in the 
North, that in the event of his election, not only will 
the Confederate debt be added to our own, not only 
will the freedom of the slave be declared inopera- 
tive, but that the Southern Rule will be enforced 
over all the States in the Union. It is astonishing, 
after so many years of discussion, how sensible 
men have been affected by this puerile fear. 



iVINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 383 

A witness like Major Daniel, who sj)oke with 
rare ability in the National Convention at Cincin- 
nati, on the 23d of June last, deserves additional 
confidence from the fact that, as long ago as June 
27, 1877, he delivered a discourse before the liter- 
ary societies of the University of Virginia on 
" The Conquered Nations," in which he laid down 
ihe principle that by the overthrow of the South 
in the civil war, not only were certain cherished 
Southern ideas themselves overthrown, but that 
a long and brighter future was open to the whole 
country, and to the South especially, by the tri- 
umph of resistless progress, and, in fact, by tlie 
collapse of the Confederacy. This speech of Major 
Daniel was in itself so exhaustive and original 
that I wish I could present it at greater length. 
But the following passages will show exactly where 
the South stands to-day, and where all the authori- 
ties prove it will continue to stand through all 
time. It is among the cruel malignities of the day 
that in the face of all the proofs of forgiveness, in 
the face of all the pledges of our laws and the 
binding forces of our constitution, the Repub- 
lican party of the North should be controlled by 
men who insist that the South cannot be trusted, 
and that the only way by which the North can be 
maintained in the Government of the country \l 
by insisting that the South is unworthy of belief. 
How intelligent men can allow this vulgar assertion 
to terrify them into the support of the very worst 



384 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

elements of Northern society is a marvel. Thou- 
sands who have sworn over and over again they 
are determined to encourage national reconcilia- 
tion, and have repeatedly advertised their con- 
tempt for the selfish men in control of the 
Kepublican party of the North, still allow them- 
selves to be guided against General Hancock 
and to be written down as the unforgiving adver- 
saries of eight millions of our own countrymen. 

In the oration of Major Daniel, on the 27th of 
June, 1877, after a retrospect of the march of con- 
quest since the beginning of civilization, he con- 
cludes as follows: 

PHYSICAL INFLUENCES THAT CONQUERED THE SOUTH. 

Pause we to inquire. What conquered the South ? Physical Geo- 
graphy had much to do with our defeat. Mountains, rivers, and oceans 
are great philosophers, law-givers, and nation-builders. The configu- 
ration of the continent in a large measure preserved the unity of the 
American race. The Mississippi river flows from North to South — 
a thousand miles long — through a Mesopotamian valley, capable of 
sustaining the population of Europe. It is the natural outlet to the 
ocean for the vast granaries and commerce of the teeming West. And 
the Western yeoman, who cared not a straw for slavery, vowed that a 
foreign State should not cut in twain this great artery — this inland sea 
— of Western navigation. And his stalwart arm cleaved open its 
channel through the barriers of Southern steel. The Mississippi river 
is the reason that Daniel Voorhees, '' the tall sycamore of the Wabash," 
did not transplant himself with a forest of Indiana bayonets on the 
southern banks of the Ohio and the Potomac. 

OTHER INFLUENCES THAT CONQUERED THE SOUTH. 

The superficial observer would say that the North conquered us be- 
cause she had more men than we had ; because she had the world at 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 385 

large to recruit from, and a navy that swept the seas. This is all true. 
These are the surface facts. But why was the North better armed, 
equipped, and provisioned than we ? Why did the world back the 
North — not the South ? Why were Lord Palmerston and Louis Na- 
poleon, who hated, and were jealous of northern power, " willing enough 
to wound, and yet afraid to strike ? " Why did Germany and Eussia 
give the North their quiet sympathy and co-operation ? 

It was because the North had cultivated the conquering ideas of the 
world. It was because she had conquered the South before a gun was 
fired. It was because she had shown herself our superior in finance, in 
literature, in arts, commerce, and manufactures. 

" Uncle Tom's Cabin " was a stronger fortress of Northern power than 
Fortress Monroe. The Northern spindles were harder to fight than 
Northern bayonets. She coined the money of the country, and drained 
the money of the South. She wrote, printed and bound the books that 
made the literature of the country. She created the arts that adoraed 
our homes. She wove the bridal veil, furnished the house, clad the 
inmates, compounded the medicines of the sick, shrouded our dead. 

HOW THE SOUTH WAS TRIBUTARY TO THE NORTH BEFORE THE WAR. 

Every Southern gentleman, every Southern lady wore the livery of 
the North. The hat of the beau, the bonnet of the belle, the kid slip- 
per of the ball-room, and the rough brogue of the cotton-field, the dress- 
coat, the silk train, the calico wrapper, and the " linsey-woolsey " 
gown — all these were Northern liveries which we wore. From the 
crown of our heads to the sole of our feet we wore the badges of com- 
mercial slaves. 

OUR PHYSICAL INFERIORITY TO OUR CONQUERORS. 

When we went to the field the Southern soldier carried an old-fa- 
shioned musket or a sportsman's shot-gun ; and was shot down by re- 
peating rifles before he got close enough to fire back with his shot-range 
weapon. While our artillerists were trying lo get near enough to loose 
their inferior cannon, and were discharging shells which burst so close 
10 tlieir own muzzles that they were often more terrible to friend than 
25 



3 86 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

to foe, the Northman sent whizzing from rifled'steel those far-flying mes- 
sengers of death which delivered the messages in our ranks almost be- 
fore our enemy was seen. While our ports were ^hermetically sealed ; 
our currency being carried to market in baskets for what might be 
brought back in the hand ; our people living on what Lazarus would 
have despised ; the North was sweeping the seas and guarding our har- 
bors with iron-clad monitors ; whose admonitions could only be rejected 
to incur desolation and destruction ; was upholding paper money to an 
approximate equality with gold ; was affluent, opulent, and unstrained ; 
and while we could not build a sixty-mile military railroad between 
Danville and Lynchburg, the North was laying its iron rails across the 
mighty stretch of the Western plains, climbing'the Eocky Mountains, 
and connecting its splendid highway with the golden gates of the Pa- 
cific. These are the facts ; thus it is that we were conquered. 

WHAT THE SOUTH LOST BY THE NORTHERN CONQUEST. 

Vast and terrible were the losses of the South by the Northern con- 
quest of her Confederacy. The wrath of the tremendous revolution 
left no condition of her people at its close which the beginning found. 

Four millions of slaves became freedmen ; in them alone millions of 
capital were annihilated, and that ever a dollar will compensate the loss 
is only a lunatic's dream. Besides this the land was devastated ; mil- 
lions of private property were destroyed and irreparably lost ; her labor 
system was broken up ; her rich beggared ; her bravest and noblest 
slain in battle ; as President Davis said, " the seed corn was ground up," 
and it seemed to her when the end came, that with her hopeful youth 
committed to early graves *' the year had lost its spring." But what 
is more, 

THE SOUTHERN CAUSE WAS IRRETRIEVABLY LOST. 

France and Germany fight for Alsace and Lorraine, for the boundaries 
of the Ehine. The war ends, but the land is there ; the cause of war 
remains ; and one war begets another. But between North and South 
the war eliminated, annihilated its cause. What was that cause ? Sla- 
very was the material bone of contention ; secession was the fiction of 
law adopted in pleading for its defence. The war ended, but slavery 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 387 

had departed forevermore, and by the arbitrament of battle secession 
was buried with it in a common grave. It may suit the frenzy of de- 
clamatory utterance to declare that " our cause was not lost " — but the 
pretence is vanity of vanities 1 As well might man hope to solve the 
problem of Nicodemus, to enter into his mother's womb and be born 
again ; as well attempt to rehabilitate the dead '' whose holy dust was 
scattered long ago " — as to revive in any form that cause. If there be 
any who fancy otherwise — I believe there are none — I would answer in 
the language of Phocion to the pompous harangues of Leosthenes, 
' ' Your speeches resemble cypress trees, which are indeed large and 
lofty, but produce no fruit." No, the cause is dead, dead — let it rest ! 

THE SPIRIT OF TRUE PATRIOTISM AND THE STATESMAN OP 

THE HOUR. 

There is nothing now to divide us ; together we builded the Union, 
together we made it a temple of liberty and grandeur ; together we 
fought at Yorktown, at Saratoga — on the fields of Mexico, and at Lun- 
dy's Lane our blood flowed in a common stream ; and together now let 
us blot out dissensions and endeavor to make reality of Plato's dream : 
** Could we create," said he, " so close and tender, and cordial a relation 
between the citizens of a State as to induce all to consider themselves 
as relatives — as fathers, brothers, and sisters — then this whole State 
would constitute but a single family, be subjected to the most perfect 
regulations, and become the happiest Eepublic that ever existed on the 
earth." This is the spirit of true patriotism, and he is the hero, and 
the statesman of the hour, who carries it out. 

THE LETTERS OF ACCEPTANCE. 

All the American methods for the selection of 
President of the United States are peculiar, and, 
as experience has shown, almost providential. Our 
national conventions are certainly the best conceiv- 
able schemes for digesting public sentiment j but 
they are still far from perfect. 



388 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Clay and "Webster were successively sacrificed 
in the conventions of their party; but public 
opinion corrected the wrong to them, by rebuking 
their party rivals, and preferring their political 
competitors. 

Presidential letters of acceptance are still more 
peculiar than our national conventions. They are 
a literature essentially American. Like the fre- 
quent messages of all our chief magistrates, State 
and national, they preserve a continuous commu- 
nication between the sovereign peo^^le and the 
servants of the sovereign people. 

In Great Britain, the monarch speaks a few cold 
sentences, prepared by the ministry, at the opening 
of Parliament, in the House of Lords ; and that is 
the end of all communication between the Queen 
and the community she still continues to call her 
"subjects.'* 

The Emperor of Germany delivers his dicta 
through the severe lips of his iron chancellor, deci- 
sions almost as costly and as scarce as if they 
were divine revelations. 

In other nations, the king is a simple conduit 
for his cabinet ; but, in the great republic, while 
the party-platform is often that party's guillotine, 
a Delphic or cabalistic utterance is no longer 
tolerated. Frankness and courage are demanded 
here, as they are exacted from the statement in 
the Senate, or the orator on the hustings. 

The Americans are an entirely abnormal people. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 389 

No other on earth have so rapidly established the 
great physiological fact, that, to mix the races, is 
to produce the best. Scientists may argue that 
single families are preserved by the transmission 
of certain traits and gifts; but the master truth 
for the masses, in this age, is, that you improve the 
whole by quick adaptation and universal assimila- 
tion. The present generation is distinguished by 
the courage of its opinions and its thought, the 
utility, as well as the novelty, of its inventions, 
the voracity of its reading, and the general inde- 
pendence of its party politics : and as long as these 
habitudes prevail there is little danger of free 
institutions. 

The letter of General Hancock, the Democratic 
candidate for President, was evidently written in 
the spirit of this estimate of the American people. 
Less technical than the letter of Mr. English, but 
equally emphatic. General Hancock appeals to the 
reason of his vast constituency. He writes like a 
genial philosopher. His style is clear to the oldest 
and youngest voter. I remember, in my boy- 
hood, a copy of the inaugural message of Simon 
Snyder, the great Democratic Governor of 
Pennsylvania from 1811 to 1817, printed 
on satin, hanging up in my grandfather's room; and 
how often I pondered upon that early platform ; 
and now, if I desired to enshrine another letter, I 
would take these words of General Hancock, and 
the last paragraph of Abraham Lincoln in his 



390 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

inaugural of 1861, and print them together in 
letters of gold. They deserve precisely such im- 
mortality. 

Hancock kept his faith, and sealed it with his 
blood at Gettysburg. Lincoln clasped his faith 
close to his heart, like the prayer of the English 
saint; and as his life ebbed out on the 14th of 
April, 1865, he was almost repeating the syllables 
of pardon to his Southern fellow-citizens. 

In Hancock's letter of acceptance, he writes : 
^^The war for the Union was successfully closed 
more than fifteen years ago. All classes of our 
people must share alike in the blessings of the 
Union, and are equally concerned in its perpetuity, 
and in the proper administration of public affairs. 
We are in a state of profound peace. Henceforth 
let it be our purpose to cultivate sentiments of 
friendship, and not of animosity, among our fellow- 
citizens. Our material interests, varied and pro- 
gressive, demand our constant and united efforts." 

Such is the judgment of the great soldier in 
1880. And now read what Abraham Lincoln 
said to the South before his administration, and 
before the civil war: "We are not enemies, but 
friends. We must not be enemies. Though pas- 
sion may have strained it must not break our bonds 
of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretch- 
ing from every battle-field and patriot grave to 
every living heart and hearth-stone all over this 
broad land, will yet sioell the chorus of the Union, 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 39 1 

when again touched, as surely they will he, hy the 
hetter angels of our naturer Such was Abraham 
Lincoln's platform nineteen years ago, and I place 
it side by side with the significant pledge of Win- 
field S. Hancock of July 31, 1880. To this central 
idea Abraham Lincoln constantly adhered. Let 
General Hancock be as true to his central idea and 
his election is as sure as his administration will be 
successful. 

Mr. English strikes another key. Naturally he 
writes more like a politician than General Han- 
cock, but there is one thought in his letter that 
will strike every reflecting mind : his text prompted 
by his experience in Congress and by his individ- 
ual wrestle with the world is that the control of 
the Government by the Republican party deserves 
to expire. Here Mr. English is the simple echo of 
the popular heart. Certainly the Republican 
leaders have presented no claim to prolonged occu- 
pation of the public ofhces; judged by their ad- 
ministration in every State of the Union they have 
failed. The great ideas which gave prestige and 
power to the party organized under the influence 
of Abraham Lincoln and Seward, Sumner and 
Greeley, have already been lost sight of. From 
California to Maine there is a spirit of deep unrest 
among the masses of the Republican party, that 
justifies the declarations of Mr. English. If we 
compare General Hancock with General Garfield, 
the verdict for the Democratic candidate for Presi- 



392 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

dent is made by General Garfield's own constitu- 
ents. By the Congress in which he has served, and 
by the newspapers that now defend him: They all 
utterly condemn Garfield. If we place Mr. English 
and Mr. Arthur, the Republican candidate for the 
Vice-President, side by side, we find that the strong- 
est verdict against the latter comes from the Repub- 
lican President of the United States, who removed 
him from ofiice for incompetency and favoritism. 
The independent voter need not be told that when 
a great party, organized for a great purpose, falls 
from its original declaration, breaks faith with the 
very men that created and saved it, turns upon its 
own record as preached by Abraham Lincoln, sub- 
stitutes for his mercy and magnanimity cruelty 
and coercion, and at the same time rejects the 
great warnings and appeals of Greeley and of Sum- 
ner, that party proves its incapacity to govern this 
great country by its own confessions. It is hardly 
necessary to add that the idea of Mr. English that 
it has served out its time and that its lease of ad- 
ministration should stop is illustrated and proved 
by the damaging charges against its own candi- 
dates for President and Vice-President, in the 
Courts, in the Press, in Congress, and in the 
country. 

GENERAL HANCOCK'S LETTER. 

Governor's Island, 
New York City, July 29, 1880. 
Gentlemen : I have the honor to,acknowledge the receipt of your 
letter of July 13, 1880, apprising me formally of my nomination to the 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 393 

office of President of the United States by the National Democratic 
Convention lately assembled at Cincinnati. I accept the nomination 
with grateful appreciation of the confidence reposed in me. 

The principles enunciated by the convention are those I have 
cherished in the past and shall endeavor to maintain in the future. 
The thirteeth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution 
of the United States, embodying the results of the war for the Union, 
are inviolable. If called to the Presidency I should deem it my duty 
to resist with all my power any attempt to impair or evade the full 
force and efiect of the Constitution, which, in every article, section and 
amendment, is the supreme law of the land. 

THE UNION UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. 

The Constitution forms the basis of the Government of the United 
States. The powers granted by it to the legislative, executive and judicial 
departments define and limit the authority of the general government. 
Powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor pro- 
hibited by it to the States, belong to the States respectively or to the peo- 
ple. The General and State governments, each acting in its own sphere 
without trenching upon the lawful jurisdiction of the other, constitute 
the Union. The Union, comprising a general government with gene- 
ral powers and State governments with State powers for purposes local 
to the States, is a polity the foundations of which were laid in the pro- 
foundest wisdom. This is the Union our fathers made, and which has 
been so respected abroad and so beneficent at home. Tried by blood 
and fire it stands to-day a model form of free popular government, a 
political system which, rightly administered, has been and will con- 
tinue to be the admiration of the world. May we not say, nearly in the 
words of Washington, the unity of government which constitutes us one 
people is justly dear to us? It is the main pillar in the edifice of our 
real independence, the support of our peace, safety and prosperity and 
of that liberty we so highly prize and intend at every hazard to pre- 
serve. 

FRAUD MUST NOT SUBVERT POPULAR RIGHTS. 

But no form of government, however carefully devised, no principles, 
however sound, will protect the rights of the people unless the adminis- 



394 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

tration is faithful and efficient. It is a vital principle in our system 
that neither fraud nor force must be allowed to subvert the rights of 
the people. When fraud, violence or incompetence controls, the noblest 
constitutions and wisest laws are useless. The bayonet is not a fit instru- 
ment for collecting the votes of freemen. It is only by a full vote, free 
ballot and fair count that the people can rule in fact as required by the 
theory of our government. Take the foundation away and the whole 
structure falls. 

PUBLIC OFFICE A TRUST. 

Public office is a trust, not a bounty bestowed upon the holder. No 
incompetent or dishonest persons should ever be entrusted with it, or, if 
appointed, they should be promptly ejected. The basis of a substantial, 
practical civil service reform must first be established by the people 
in filling the elective offices. If they fix a high standard of qualifica- 
tions for office and sternly reject the corrupt and ijiiompetent, the re- 
sult will be decisive in governing the action of the servants whom they 
entrust with appointing power. 

LET us HAVE PEACE. 

The war for the Union was successfully closed more than fifteen years 
ago. All classes of our people must share alike in the blessings of the 
Union and are equally concerned in its perpetuity and in the proper 
administration of public afi^airs. We are in a state of profound peace. 
Henceforth Jet it be our purpose to cultivate sentiments of friendship 
and not of animosity among our fellow-citizens. Our material interests, 
varied and progressive, demand our constant and united efforts. A 
sedulous and scrupulous care of the public credit, together with a wise 
and economical management of our governmental expenditures, should 
be maintained in order that labor may be lightly burdened and that 
all persons may be protected in their rights to the fruits of their own 
industry. 

THE WAY TO PROSPERTY. 

The time has come to enjoy the substantial benefits of reconciliation. 
As one people we have common interests. Let us encourage the harmony 
and generous rivalry among our own industries which will revive our 
languishing merchant marine, extend our commerce with foreign na- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 39 5 

tions, assist our merchants, manufacturers and producers to develop our 
vast natural resources and increase the prosperity and happiness of our 
people. 

If elected I shall, with the Divine favor, labor with what ability I 
possess to discharge my duties with fidelity according to ray convictions, 
and shall take care to protect and defend the Union and to see that the 
laws be faithfully and equally executed in all parts of the country alike. 
I will assume the responsibility fully sensible of the fact that to ad- 
minister rightly the functions of government is to discharge the most 
sacred duty that can devolve upon an American citizen. 
I am, respectfully yours, 

WiNFiELD Scott Hancock. 

To the Honorable John W. Stevenson, President of the Convention ; 
Honorable J OHN P. Stockton, Chairman, and others of the Com- 
mittee of the National Democratic Convention. 

LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE FROM MR. ENGLISH. 

WHY THE KEPUBLICAN PARTY SHOULD GIVE V^AY TO THE DEMO- 
CRATS. 

Indianapolis, July 30. — Hon. William H. English transmitted the 
following letter of acceptance of his nomination as candidate for Vice- 
President to the committee of notification to-day. 

Indianapolis, Ind., July 80, 1880. 
To Hon. John W. Stevenson, President of the Convention ; Hon, 
John P. Stockton, Chairman, and other members of the Commit- 
tee of Notification : 
Gentlemen : I have now the honor to reply to your letter of the 
13th instant, informing me that I was unanimously nominated for the 
office of Vice-President of the United States by the late Democratic 
National Convention which assembled at Cincinnati. As foreshadowed 
in the verbal remarks made by me at the time of the delivery of your 
letter, I have now to say that I accept the high trust with a realizing 
sense of its responsibility, and am profoundly grateful for the honor 
conferred. I accept the nomination upon the platform of principles 



o 



96 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 



adopted by the convention, which I cordially approve, and I accept it 
quite as mu|ph because of my faith in the wisdom and patriotism of the 
great statesman and soldier nominated on the same ticket for Presi- 
dent of the United States. His eminent services to^his country ; his 
fidelity to the Constitution, the Union and the laws ; his clear percep- 
tion of the correct principles of government as taught by Jefferson ; 
his scrupulous care to keep the military in strict subordination to the 
civil authorities; his high regard to civil liberty, personal rights and 
the right of property ; his acknowledged ability in civil as well as mili- 
tary afiairs and his pure and blameless life all point to him as a man 
worthy of the confidence of the people. Not only a brave soldier, a 
great commander, a wise statesman and a pure patriot, but a prudent, 
painstaking, practical man of unquestioned honesty, trusted often with 
important public duties, faithful to every trust and in the full meridian 
of ripe and vigorous manhood, he is, in my judgment, eminently fitted 
for the highest oflice on earth — the Presidency of the United States. 

A CHANGE DEMANDED. 

Not only is he the right man for the place, but the time has come 
when the best interests of the country require that the party which has 
monopolized the executive department of the General Government for 
the last twenty years should be retired. The continuance of that party 
in power four years longer would not be beneficial to the public nor in 
accordance with the spirit of the republican institutions. Laws of en- 
tail have not been favored in our system of government. The perpetu- 
ation of property or place in one family or set of men has never been 
encouraged in this country, and the great and good men who formed 
our republican government and its traditions wisely limited the tenure 
of office and in many ways showed their disapproval of long leases of 
power. Twenty years of continuous power is long enough, and has 
already led to irregularities and corruptions which are not likely to be 
properly exposed under the same party that perpetrated them. 

FRAUD MUST NOT BE CONDONED. 

Besides it should not be forgotten that the four last years of power 
held by that party were procured by discreditable means and held in 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK, 397 

defiance of the wishes of a majority of the people. It was a grievous 
wrong to every voter and to our system of self-government which should 
never be forgotten or forgiven. Many of the men now in office were 
there because of corrupt partisan services in thus defeating the fairly 
and legally expressed will of the majority, and the hypocrisy of the 
professions of that party, in favor of civil service reform, was shown by 
placing such men in office and turning the whole brood of Federal 
office-holders loose to influence the elections. The money of the people, 
taken out of the public treasury, by these men, for services often poorly 
performed, or not performed at all, is being used in vast sums, with the 
knowledge and presumed sanction of the administration, to control the 
elections ; and even the members of the Cabinet are strolling about the 
country, making partisan speeches, instead of being at their departments 
at Washington, discharging the public duties for which they are paid by 
the people. But with all their cleverness and ability, a discriminating 
public will, no doubt, read between the lines of their speeches, that 
their paramount hope and aim is to keep themselves, or their satellites, 
four years longer in office. That perpetuating the power of chronic 
Federal office-holders four years longer will not benefit the millions 
of men and women who hold no office, but earn their daily bread by 
honest industry, is what the same discerning public will, no doubt, fully 
understand, as they will, also, that it is because of their own industry 
and economy, and God's bountiful harvests, that the country is compara- 
tively prosperous, and not because of anything done by these Federal 
office-holders. The country is comparatively prosperous, not because of 
them, but in spite of them. 

THE PEOPLE AND THE OFFICE-HOIiDEPvS. 

The contest is, in fact, between the people, endeavoring to regain the 
political power which rightfully belongs to them, and to restore the 
pure, simple, economical, constitutional government of our fathers, on 
the one side, and a hundred thousand Federal office-holders, and their 
backers, pampered with place and power, and determined to retain them 
at all hazards, on the other. Hence the constant assumption of new and 
dangerous powers, by the general government, under the rule of the 



398 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Eepublican Party. The effort to build up what they call a strong 
government ; the interference with home rule and with the administra- 
tion of justice in the courts of the several States ; the interference with 
the elections through the medium of paid partisan Federal office-holders 
interested in keeping their party in power, and caring more for that 
than fairness in the elections ; in fact, the constant encroachments which 
have been made, by that party, upon the clearly reserved rights of the 
people, and the States, will, if not checked, subvert the liberties of the 
people, and the government of limited powers, created by the fathers, 
and end in a great consolidated central government, strong, indeed, for 
evil, and the overthrow of republican institutions. The wise men who 
framed our Constitution knew the evils of a strong government, and the 
long continuance of political power, in the same hands. They knew 
there was a tendency, in this direction, in all governments, and conse- 
quent danger to republican institutions from that cause, and took pains 
to guard against it. The machinery of a strong centralized general 
government can be used to perpetuate the same set of men in power, 
from term to term until it ceases to be a republic, or is such only in 
name; and the tendency of that party, now in power, in that direction, 
as shown in various ways besides the willingness recently manifested by 
a large number of that party to elect a President an unlimited number 
of terms, is quite apparent, and must satisfy thinking people that the 
time has come when it will be safest and best for that party to be 
retired. 

IN FAVOR OF THE CONSTITUTION. 

But in resisting the encroachments of the General Government upon 
the reserved rights of the people and the States, I wish to be distinctly 
understood as favoriug the power exercised by the General Government 
of the powers rightfully belonging to it and under the Constitution. 
Encroachments upon the constitutional rights of the General Govern- 
ment, or interference with the proper exercise of its powers, must be 
carfully avoided. The union of the States under the Constitution must 
be maintained, and it is well known that this has always been the position 
of both the candidates on the Democratic Presidential ticket. It is 
acquiesced in everywhere now, and finally and forever settled as one of 



liuji [ijjiLiiLij I'jjji i.u MjH J j.u ni jjj j j 1 1 LiiOiauji.i.!ih|, iN 




Gen. Hancock in his Private Office N. Y. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 401 

the results of the war. It is certain beyond all question that the legiti- 
mate result of the war for the Union will not be overthrown or impaired 
should the Democratic ticket be elected. 

WHAT THE DEMOCRATS WILL DO. 

In that event proper protection will be given in every legitimate way 
to every citizen, native or adopted, in every section of the republic, in 
enjoyment of all the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and its amend- 
ments. A sound currency of honest money, of a value and purchasing 
power corresponding substantially with the standard recognized by the 
commercial world and consisting of gold and silver and paper, converti- 
ble into coin, will be maintained. The labor and manufacturing, com- 
mercial and business interests of the country will be favored and encour- 
aged in every legitimate way. The toiling millions of our people will 
be protected from the destructive competition of the Chinese, and to that 
end their immigration to our shores will be properly restricted. 

The public credit will be scrupulously maintained and strengthened 
by rigid economy in public expenditures, and the liberties of the people 
and the property of the people will be protected by a government of law 
and order, administered strictly in the interests of all the people, and not 
of corporations and privileged classes. 

I do not doubt the discriminating justice of the people and their capa- 
city for intelligent self-government, and therefore do not doubt the suc- 
cess of the Democratic ticket. Its success would bury, beyond resur- 
rection, the sectional jealousies and hatreds which have so long been the 
chief stock in trade of pestiferous demagogues, and in no other way can 
this be so effectually accomplished. It would restore harmony and good 
feeling between all the sections and make us in fact, as well as in name, 
one people. 

The only rivalry then would be in the race for the development of 
material prosperity, the elevation of labor, the enlargement of human 
rights, the promotion of education, morality, religion, liberty, order 
and all that would tend to make us the foremost nation of the earth 
in the grand march of human progress. 

I am, with great respect, very truly yours, 

William H. English. 



402 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

GENERAL HANCOCK FOUR YEARS AGO. HIS LETTER 

TO GENERAL SHERMAN ON THE PRESIDENTIAL 

COMPLICATION OF 1876. 

There is another American peculiarity which 
has had another equally peculiar illustration. Few 
of our Presidents, if we believe what was said of 
them, during the struggles preceding their admin- 
istration, or while acting, wrote their own State 
papers. Washington was accused of submitting 
most of his messages for revision, if not entirely, 
to the eloquent Hamilton ; and although nobody 
questioned the ability of John Adams, and Jeffer- 
son, and Madison, and Monroe, and John Quincy 
Adams, to write their great State papers, yet 
hundreds and thousands balieve that General Jack- 
son was indebted to Livingston for his immortal 
proclamation, that Harrison relied upon Daniel 
Webster, that President Taylor spoke his thoughts 
through the clear mind of John M. Clayton, that 
President Pierce was the willing echo of the opin- 
ions of W. L. Marcy, his Secretary of State, that 
James Buchanan was essentially aided by Lewis 
Cass, that General Grant did not refuse the experi- 
enced hand of Hamilton Fish, his Secretary of State, 
and that Mr. Lincoln was largely guided by William 
H. Seward. And now the old practice is renewed, 
and we have a charge that General Hancock is so 
mere a soldier that he can hardly write a few sen- 
tences of consecutive grammar, and that his sue- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 403 

cessful administration of the 5th Military District 
in 1867 and 1868, composed of the States of Lou- 
isiana and Texas, is ascribed to the skill of the law- 
yers of New Orleans. His letter of acceptance 
printed elsewhere is only saved from the charge of 
being the work of some vigorous instrument, by 
the Republican verdict that it amounts to nothing! 
Yet at this moment comes forth a letter by Gen- 
eral Hancock on the 28th of December, 1876, 
covering a discussion on the Presidential imbroglio 
of that period which dissipates all these assertions, 
as the rising sun dissipates the mist of the early 
morning. This letter is so genuine upon its face, 
so honest and manly, that it seems to be rather the 
colloquial communication of an accomplished 
scholar and gentleman than a formal document writ- 
ten with a cold and careful pen. Nothing in the short 
political experience of General Hancock is more 
amusing than the transparent attempt to do him 
injury by discrediting his mental capacity to dis- 
cuss certain government' questions. Happily the 
people themselves are sufficiently sensible and sa- 
gacious not to penetrate the motive for these con- 
certed efforts to do injustice to a gallant soldier 
and accomplished gentleman. At last it appears 
that failing in every effort to disparage his character 
and to underrate his capacities, they now take 
refuge in surprise at the ability of his spontaneous 
letter to General Sherman in reference to the Presi- 
dential complication four years ago, when he had 



404 ' LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

no selfish motive to speak an untruth, and no aspi- 
ration beyond a sincere desire to do his duty to his 
superior and to be faithful to his oath under the 
constitution. As a proper appendant to the two 
letters of acceptance, the full text of General Han- 
cock to General Sheridan in regard to the threat- 
ened difficulties after the Presidential election of 
November, 1876, is now printed. The party 
papers eager to discover something to the injury 
of General Hancock, deliberately invented the ac- 
cusation that he intended to support Mr. Tilden's 
claim to the Presidency if Tilden attempted to 
take the oath of office at Washington, on the 4th 
of March, 1877. It was also charged that he had 
written a letter to General W. T. Sherman, com- 
manding the Army of the United States, to this ef- 
fect. Hearing of these allegations General Han- 
cock declared that anything he had ever written to 
General Sherman might be given to the public. 
Since then both parties have consented that his 
letters shall be made public, and the New York 
World laid them before its readers, on Sunday, Au- 
gust 1st, 1880. In reply to a reporter of the New 
York Herald, General Hancock thus frankly ex- 
plains his relation to the whole affair : 

Hancock's reverence of civil law. 

" I hardly remembered writing the letter," he said, " until I saw a 
reference to it in some of the newspapers. When I wrote it I had no 
idea that it would ever be published. I was in a Western town on pri- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 405 

vate business, with no secretary or member of my staff with me. I 
wrote it frankly and with no constraint." 

'* And stick by what you wrote ? '* 

" I never wrote anything I am afraid of having known and that I 
would not stick to." 

"And you desire this letter to be published ? " 

" I only waited for the consent of General Sherman, and that having 
been given there is no obstacle against its publication." 

Following is the full text of the letter : 

Carondelet p. O., St. Louis, December 28, 1876. 

My Dear General ; — Your favor of the 4th inst. reached me in 
New York on the 5th, the day before I left for the West. I intended 
to reply to it before leaving, but cares incident to my departure inter- 
fered. Then again, since my arrival here I have been so occupied with 
personal affairs of a business nature that I have deferred writing from day 
to day until this moment, and now I find myself in debt to you another 
letter in acknowledgment of your favor of the 17th, received a few days 
since. I have concluded to leave here on the 29th, (to-morrow) after- 
noon, so that I may be expected in New York on the 31st inst. It has 
been cold and dreary since my arrival here. I have worked "like a 
Turk," (I presume that means hard work), in the country in making 
fences, cutting down trees, repairing buildings, etc, etc., and am at 
least able to say that St. Louis is the coldest place in the winter and it 
is the hottest place in summer of any place that I have encountered 
in a temperate zone. I have known St. Louis in December to have 
genial weather throughout the month ; this December has been frigid, 
and the river has been frozen more solid than I have ever known it. 

When I heard the rumor that I was ordered to the Pacific coast I 
thought it probably true, considering the past discussion on the subject. 
The possibilities seemed to me to point that way. Had it been true, I 
should, of course, have presented no complaint nor made resistance of 
any kind. I would have gone quickly, if not prepared to go promptly. 
I certainly would have been relieved from the responsibilities and anxie- 
ties concerning Presidential matters, which may fall to those near the ^ 



406 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

throne or in authority within the next four montlis, as well as from otlier 
incidents or matters which I could not control and the action concern- 
ing which I might not approve. I was not exactly prepared to go to 
the Pacific, however, and I therefore felt relieved when I received your 
note informing me that there was no truth in the rnmors. Then I did 
not wish to appear to be escaping from responsibilities and possible dan- 
gers which may cluster around military commanders jn the East, espe- 
cially in the critical period fast approaching. ''All's well that ends 
well." 

The whole matter of the Presidency seems to me to be simple and to 
admit of a peaceful solution. The machinery for such a contingency 
as threatens to present itself has been all carefully prepared. It only 
requires lubrication, owing to disuse. The army should have nothing 
to do with the election or inauguration of Presidents. The people elect 
the President. The Congress declares in a joint session who he is. We of 
the army have only to obey his mandates, and are protected in so doing 
only so far as they may be lawful. Our commissions express that. I 
like Jefferson's way of inauguration ; it suits our system. He rode alone 
on horseback to the Capitol (I fear it was the "Old Capitol") tied his 
horse to a rail fence, entered and was duly sworn ; then rode to the 
Executive Mansion and took possession. He inaugurated himself 
simply by taking the oath of office. There is no other legal inaugura- 
tion in our system. The people or politicians may institute parades in 
honor of the event and public officials may add to the pageant by as- 
sembling troops and banners, but all that only comes properly after the 
inauguration — not before, and it is not a part of it. Oar system does 
not provide that one President should inaugurate another. There 
might be danger in that, and it was studiously left out of the charter. 

But you are placed in an exceptionally important position in connec- 
tion with coming events. The Capitol is my jurisdiction also, but I 
am a subordinate and not on the spot, and if I were, so also would be 
my superior in authority, for there is the station of the General-in- 
Chief. On the principle that a regularly-elected President's term of 
office expires with the 3d of March (of which I have not the slightest 
doubt) and which the laws bearing on the subject uniformly recognize, 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 407 

and in consideration of the possibility that the lawfully-elected Presi- 
dent may not appear until the 5th of March, a great deal of responsi- 
bility falls upon you. You hold over. You will have power and pres- 
tige to support you. The Secretary of War, too, probably holds over ; 
but if no President appears he may not be able to exercise functions in 
the name of a President, for his proper acts are those of a known superior 
— a lawful President. 

You act on your own responsibility and by virtue of a commission 
only restricted by the law. The Secretary of War is the mouthpiece of 
a President. You are not. If neither candidate has a constitutional 
majority of the Electoral College, or the Senate and House on the oc- 
casion of the count do not unite in declaring some person legally elected 
by the people, there is a lawful machinery already provided to meet 
that contingency and decide the question peacefully. It has not been 
recently used, no occasion presenting itself, but our forefathers provided 
it. It has been exercised and has been recognized and submitted to as 
lawful on every hand. 

• That machinery would probably elect Mr. Tilden President and Mr. 
Wheeler Vice-President. That would be right enough, for the law 
provides that in a failure to elect duly by the people the House shall 
immediately elect the President and the Senate the Vice-President. 
Some tribunal must decide whether the people have duly elected a Pre- 
sident. I presume, of course, that it is in the joint affirmative action 
of the Senate and House, or why are they present to witness the count 
if not to see that it is fair and just ? If a failure to agree arises between 
the two bodies there can be no lawful affirmative decision that the peo- 
ple have elected a President, and the House must then proceed to act, 
not the Senate. The Senate elects Vice-Presidents, not President. 
Doubtless, in case of a failure by the house to elect a President by the 
4th of March, the President of the Senate (if there be one) would be the 
legitimate person to exercise Presidential authority for the time being, 
or until the appearance of a lawful President, or for the time laid down 
in the Constitution. Such courses would be peaceful and, I have a 
firm belief, lawful. 

I have no doubt Governor Hayes would make an excellent President. 



408 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

I have met him, and know of him. For a brief period he serve'd under 
my command ; but as the matter stands, I can't see any likelihood of 
his being duly declared elected by the people unless the Senate and 
House come to be in accord as to that fact, and the House would, of 
course, not otherwise elect him. What the people want is a peaceful 
determination of this matter, as fair a determination as possible and a 
lawful one. No other determination could stand the test. The coun- 
try, if not plunged into revolution, would become poorer day by day, 
business would languish, and our bonds would come home to find a 
depreciated market. 

I was nqt in favor of the military action in South Carolina recently ; 
and if General Kuger had telegraphed to me, or asked for advice, I 
would have advised him not under any circumstances to allow himself 
or his troops to determine who were the lawful members of a State 
Legislature. I could not have given him better advice than to refer 
him to the special message of the President in the case of Louisiana 
some time before. But in South Carolina he had the question settled 
by a decision of the Supreme Court of the State — the highest tribunal 
which had acted on the question — so that his line of duty seemed even 
to be clearer than in the action in the Louisiana case. If the Federal 
Court had interfered and overruled the decision of the State Court, 
there might have been a doubt certainly ; but the Federal Court only 
interfered to complicate, not to decide or overrule. 

Anyhow, it is no business of the army to enter upon such questions; 
and even if it might be so, in any event, if the civil authority is su- 
preme, as the Constitution declares it to be, the South Carolina case was 
one in which the army had a plain duty. Had General Kuger asked 
me for advice, and if I had given it, I should, of course, have notified 
you of my action immediately, so that it could have been promptly 
overruled if it should have been deemed advisable by you or other 
superior in authority. General Ruger did not ask for my advice, and 
I inferred from that and other facts that he did not desire it, or that, 
being in direct communication with my military superiors at the seat 
of government — who were nearer to him in time and distance than I 
was — he deemed it unnecessary. As General Ruger had the ultimate 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 409 

responsibility of action, and had really the greater danger to confront in 
the final action in the matter, I did not venture to embarrass him by 
suggestions. He was a department commander and the lawful head of 
the military administration within the limits of the department ; but, 
besides, I knew that he had been called to Washington for consultation 
before taking command, and was probably aware of the views of the 
administration as to the civil affairs in his command. I knew that he 
was in direct communication with my superiors in authority in refer- 
ence to the delicate subjects presented for his consideration, or had ideas 
of his own which he believed to be sufficiently in accord with the view.s 
of our common superiors to enable him to act intelligently according 
to his judgment and without suggestions from those not on the spot and 
not as fully acquainted with the facts as himself. He desired, too, to 
be free to act, as he had the eventual greater responsibility, and so the 
matter was governed as between him and myself. 

As I have been writing thus freely to you, I may still further 
unbosom myself by stating that I have not thought it lawful or wise to 
use Federal troops in such matters as have transpired east of the Missis- 
sippi within the last few months, save so far as they may be brought 
into action under the article of the Constitution which contemplates 
meeting armed resistance or invasion of a State more powerful than the 
State authorities can subdue by the ordinary processes, and then, only 
when requested by the legislature, or, if it could not be convened in 
session, by the governor; and when the president of the United States 
intervenes in that manner it is a stale of war — not peace. The army is 
laboring under disadvantages, and has been used unlawfully, at times, 
in the judgment of the people (in mine certainly), and we have lost a 
great deal of the kindly feeling which the community at large once felt 
for us. 

It is time to stop and unload. Officers in command of troops often 
find it difficult to act wisely and safely when superiors, in authority, 
have different views of the law from theirs, and when legislation has 
sanctioned law seemingly in conflict with the fundamental law, and they 
generally defer to the known judgment of their superiors. Yet the 
superior officers of the army are so regarded in such great crises, and 



410 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

are held to such responsibility, especially those at or near the head of 
it, that it is necessary, on such momentous occasions, to dare to deter- 
mine for themselves what is lawful, and what is not lawful, under our 
system. If the military authorities should be invoked, as might possibly 
be the case in such exceptional times when there existed such divergent 
views as to the correct result, the army will suffer from its past action if 
it has acted wrongfully. Our regular army has little hold upon the 
affections of the people of to-day, and its superior officers should 
certainly, as far as lies in their power, legally, and with righteous 
intent, aim to defend the right, which to us is the law and the institu- 
tion which they represent. It is a well-meaning institution, and it 
would be well if it should have an opportunity to be recognized as a 
bulwark in support of the rights of the people, and of the law. 

I am truly yours, 

WiNFiELD S. Hancock. 

To General AV. T. Sherman, Commanding Army of the United 
States, Washington, D. C. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 411 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE LIVING STATESMEN OF THE PAST. 

THERE is nothing more depressing to the patri- 
otic philosopher than the fact that a candidate, 
like General Garfield, all the defects of whose 
record are charged upon him by his own politi- 
cal friends, should be so strenuously sustained by 
the leaders of the Republican party, and at the 
same time that these leaders should refuse to do 
justice to the admitted excellencies of General 
Hancock, the Democratic candidate for President. 
Dwelling upon this painful spectacle, the com- 
parison between the old political leaders still left 
upon the stage, and the new men who have taken 
command of the administration party of the 
country, becomes equally natural and necessary. 

Before the civil war, long before the slavery 
agitation cast its dark shadow upon our national 
councils, the public men of the United States of 
both parties were engaged in the work of true 
statesmanship, and the old Whigs and Democrats 
of both sections mingled together, differing about 
evanescent issues, but sincerely desirous to promote 



412 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

national concord and prosperity. Now the states- 
men of the South of both the old schools, Whigs 
and Democrats, so far as the present Republican 
party can do it, are pushed into insignificance. 
Treated as aliens, and not only as aliens, but dis- 
trusted by the present controllers of what is 
called the Republican party, in vain have the best 
men of the South been forgiven by Mr. Lincoln 
and Mr. Sumner. They are still misrepresented and 
hated by Mr. Garfield and his sponsors. In vain 
has the Constitution of the United States restored 
them to their rights, even including Jefferson Davis, 
the head of the Confederacy. The fact is patent 
that so far as the Republican party is concerned, 
no Southern statesman is welcome in the North. 
None of his views are respected by the modern 
leaders of that party, and the masses of the people 
are allowed to derive no benefit from the wisdom 
of Southern statesmen. 

Twenty-five years ago there was not a Southern 
State in which we could not find honest, able, and 
patriotic men, anxious for the welfare of the whole 
Union. They, or men like them, are still living, anx- 
ious to show their pride of country, and warmly at- 
tached to the Northern people in the great interests 
of life. Hundreds of them are connected by mar- 
riage in the North, and yet so far as the leaders of 
the party now asking the votes of the North alone, 
because they have almost abandoned any appeal to 
the South, are concerned, these disinterested and 



WINFIEL D SCOTT HANCOCK. 4 1 



o 



most influential elements of Southern society and 
culture, are no more considered or respected than if 
they occupied a foreign territory. Who does not re- 
call the days when Robert C. Winthrop of Boston 
was glad to take by the hand A. H. H. Stuart of 
Virginia ? when Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, 
was proud to be the associate of Thomas H. Ben- 
tcai of Missouri ? when John Sargent of Pennsyl- 
vania was glad to be regarded as the follower of his 
great friend, Henry Clay of Kentucky ; and when 
the Democrats pointed with pleasure to George M. 
Dallas in the North, and the Whigs to Sargent 
Prentiss in the South, when John J. Crittenden 
of Kentucky, and Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, 
even if they disagreed in politics, were personal 
friends; but now, under the leaders of the Re- 
publican party, the beginning and end of every 
speech, like the beginning and end of every Re- 
publican editorial, is to repudiate Southern associ- 
ations and to reject Southern counsel. 

The question now arises whether this condition 
of things meets the approval of the merchants, the 
producers and mechanics of the North and the 
West, whether men of business are content to let 
this system of ostracism under the present Repub- 
lican leaders go on ? That, after all, is the great 
and substantial question, and it is precisely that 
question which enters so largely into the solid 
North. The party has become the Northern 
Republican ring machine. There is nothing 



414 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

left to-day for the Kepublican party, as at pre- 
sent managed, but to assail theSouth. That 
is the burden of every EepubHcan editorial 
and every Republican speech in Maine, in New 
York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and in the Pa- 
cific States. Now if this country of ours is to be 
perpetually administered by the men who have 
General Garfield in charge, and if the South is to 
be held up as a constant bugbear, and the North in 
turn held up to the South as a constant tyrant, 
what becomes of the pardon of Mr. Lincoln? 
What becomes of the guarantee of your laws? 
What becomes of the covenant of your constitu- 
tion? The answer to these questions must be 
made by the non-partisan people, and not by those 
who for the time being hold the offices of the Gen- 
eral Government, and are simply trying to defeat 
General Hancock that they may continue to hold 
these offices. 

What merchant in New York or Philadelphia 
does not desire to join hands with the merchant in 
New Orleans and Charleston ? What distinguished 
lawyer in the North is not eager once more to 
enter into social and professional rehations with the 
distinguished lawyers of the South ? Other 
national conventions, whether religious, scientific, 
legal, railroad, manufacturing and otherwise, come 
together like combinations of brothers and friends. 
But when the Democratic party, itself, takes the 
initiative and presents a candidate for the Presi- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 415 

dency, who, according to the Republican leaders 
and newspapers themselves can never be repaid 
for his services to the cause of the country, in 
other words can never be repaid for having aided 
to crush the rebellion, then and then alone, a 
party Convention at Chicago professing to represent 
the Republican party of the United States declares 
'^ hands off" to that manly proposition for peace. 

How different from the example of the great men 
who seemed to have passed out of existence with 
Abraham Lincoln, Charles Sumner, William H. 
Seward, and the rest. We hear now of no proffers 
of kindness and conciliation from the leaders of the 
Republican party, except from General Grant, and 
they defeated him at Chicago. Now to demand 
conciliation, and peace, forgiveness for the South, 
on the part of the Republican party is a crime, an 
unpardonable offence to be punished by expulsion 
and by personal abuse of all men having the 
•courage to take such a stand. 

The more this extraordinary condition of affairs 
is presented to the common mind in the North, the 
more certain will be the indignant repudiation of 
those who make the ostracism. The day will come 
and come soon, not only when the people of the 
North and South will vote together, as they did 
in former times, but that the leaders will take 
counsel with each other and a true national sen- 
timent be established and fortified under the influ- 
ence of the best culture of all sections 



416 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

GENERAL GARFIELD'S PRIVATE CHARACTER. 

In such a volume as this, when so many illogi- 
cal advantages are assumed by the friends of 
General Garfield, and when the stupendous attempt 
is again made to revive the cruel animosities that 
so long delayed practical reconstruction, when in- 
deed nothing is so favorite a weapon in the hands 
of the official partisans who seem to have General 
Garfield's interest most in charge, as the monstrous 
assumption that a large section of this Union still 
stands in a rebellious attitude, is still only worthy 
of gyves and fetters, the strongest system of per- 
sonal retaliation upon the private character of 
the Democratic candidate for President might be 
justified. If General Hancock were placed in 
Mr. Garfield's position, the whole republican press 
would ring with comments upon the established 
truth of his want of personal integrity. Nothing 
but the fact that General Hancock stands beyond 
reproach, nothing but the fact that his character is 
too high and to pure to be even tarnished by the 
breath of suspicion, prevents the most reckless ap- 
peals and the most unbridled calumny. 

So far as General Garfield is concerned, what- 
ever bad record presents him to this great constitu- 
ency, has been made up by his own party. There 
has been no intimation against his character from 
a Democratic source. Every allegation that ques- 
tions his personal honesty or his official integrity, 
comes from the Republican party, from the Repub- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 417 

lican press, from his own Republican constituents, 
from the Republican courts of justice, from the 
Republican committees of investigation, and from 
the summaries made against him by Republican 
statesmen. Having been made up by such authori- 
ties, I leave them to be digested and disposed of 
by the party among whom they originated, and by 
the great grand jury of the American people in 
November next. 

HANCOCK AS A CIVIL MAGISTRATE. 

When General Hancock was sent by President 
Johnson to take command of the Fifth Mihtary 
Division, composed of the States of Louisiana and 
Texas, in 1867, it was in the midst of the conflict 
between the Executive, Congress, General Grant, 
and the Republican party. The carpet-bag rule 
had reached its worst point in North Carolina, 
South Carolina, and Louisiana. President John- 
son, Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, Mr. Welles, 
Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Alexander W. Ran- 
dall, Postmaster General, Mr. Browning, Secretary 
of the Interior, and Mr. McCulIough, Secretary of 
the Treasury, were frequently in conflict with the 
Republican leaders, and necessarily frequently in 
concert with the Democratic leaders, and when the 
President, to use the phrase of the day, ^-'swung 
around the circle," it was amusing to see how the 
office-holders and party parasites followed the Pres- 
idential cortege. General Grant himself, with his 



418 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

natural avoidance of politics, and his strong attach- 
ment to his Republican friends, could not decline 
the invitation to become a figure in the Presiden- 
tial tournament, and he well remembers the 
political harangues which generally punctuated 
the progress of the Executive as he passed through 
the great cities. 

The policy of reconstruction, as advocated by 
Andrew Johnson and supported by the Democratic 
leaders, the determination of Mr. Johnson to re- 
move Secretary Stanton from the war department, 
the failure of the attempt to impeach Johnson be- 
fore the Senate of the United States, the issue of 
veracity between General Grant and the President, 
the certificates of the members of the cabinet sus- 
taining Mr. Johnson and the reply of the Liesuten- 
ant General, how speedily they succeeded each 
other and how soon they were forgotten ! Now, 
as I write when President Johnson is dead, 
Mr. Seward is dead, and Thaddeus Stevens is 
dead, and Charles Sumner, and Postmaster-General 
Randall, the excitement over all these questions 
is as dead as these parties to them, we only 
remember Andrew Johnson to admit his personal 
integrity and to deplore his personal enmities, and 
if we recall Mr. Seward, as we do, it is to admire 
his marvellous toleration precisely as we admire 
the grim wit and noble traits of Thaddeus Stevens 
of Pennsylvania. 

It was about this time that an attempt was 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 419 

made to quote General Grant in favor of President 
Johnson's policy of reconstruction, and this at- 
tempt induced the Lieutenant General to write 
to the gentleman who made the attempt as 

follows : 

» 

" Headquarters Armies of the United States, 

" Washington, D. C, September 15, 1866. 
" I see from tlie papers that you have been making a speech, in which 
you pledge me to a political party. I am in receipt of a letter from 
General Gresham of Indiana, in which he says that his opponent for 
Congress had published an extract from a letter received from you, in 
which you pledge me to the support of President Johnson, and opposed 
to the election of any candidate who does not support his policy. You 
nor no man living is authorized to speak for me in political matters, 
and I ask you to desist in the future. I want every man to vote a/icording 
to his own judgment without influence from me. 

"Yours, &c. U. S. Grant. 

" To Brevet Brigadier-General W. S. Hillyer, New York." 

This forgotten letter will excite a smile at the 
present time in view of the efforts making by the 
politicians to induce General Grant to persuade 
the Union soldiers of the country to vote against 
General Winfield S. Hancock for President of the 
United States. But in 1867 President Johnson 
determined to make a change in the military com- 
manders of the five Southern Districts, and he was 
particularly anxious to remove Major General 
Philip H. Sheridan from the Fifth District com- 
posed of Louisiana and Texas, and accordingly is- 
sued an order putting General Hancock in com- 



420 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

mand of the Fifth District in place of General 
Sheridan. It is unnecessary to renew the differ- 
ence between General Grant and General Hancock, 
relating as it did to affairs, no doubt long since 
forgotten by General Grant, who, as I have said, 
had considerable difficulty in his intercourse with 
President Johnson. The real value that now at- 
taches to General Hancock's administration of the 
Fifth Military District composed of the States of 
Louisiana and Texas, is the great ability he dis- 
played in the management of certain domestic 
political questions coming within his jurisdiction 
as chief of that department. The compliments 
paid to General Hancock since his nomination at 
Cincinnati by both Grant and Sheridan shows that 
their admiration as a great soldier and a great man 
is still as strong as that of General Sherman, the 
General-in-Chief. 

Here again time has done its wholesome work. 
And I feel free to say that there is not a position 
taken by General Hancock while in command of 
this same Fifth Military District, examined in the 
light of experience and subsequent events, that 
will not to-day meet the approval of every intelli- 
gent man in the United States. So rapidly has 
the South rehabilitated itself^ so successful have 
the doctrines herein asserted by General Hancock 
vindicated themselves, and so entirely have the 
political parties everywhere yielded to the logic of 
events, that no man can read what General Han- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 421 

cock wrote in 1868 without coming to the conclusion 
that what he said and what he wrote then he can 
proudly reaffirm and stand by to the end of his 
life. There are certain co-relative facts which 
command and demand recognition : Whites and 
blacks everywhere in the Southern country, since 
they have been rescued from the dangers and de- 
moralization of the carpet-bag rule, have in possession 
of their own franchises, falling back upon the great 
principle which after all must control in every 
community — superior intelligence will master 
natural inferiority — and while universal suffrage 
was as logical and as necessary, as universal amnesty 
was religiously right, there is not an intelligent 
colored man in the United States to-day that will 
not admit that the class of ignorant blacks can no 
more rule the destinies of the South than a similar 
class of ignorant whites can rule the destinies of 
the North. 

A fact like this, stubborn and conclusive as it is, 
is too constantly illustrated to need argument or 
explanation. And hence, when General Hancock 
was transferred to the Department of Louisiana 
and Texas, he had no more to do than to obey the 
orders of the Executive ; than General Grant him- 
self had to do when he accepted the invitation of 
the President to become one of his party as 
he swung around the circle in company with Mr. 
Seward in his celebrated tour of 1863. The two 
cases are precisely alike, only it might have been 



422 LIFE AND PUBLIC CABEEB OF 

more agreeable to Gen. Hancock to obey the orders 
of the Chief Magistrate of the United States than it 
was to Gen. Grant, but the fact of obedience to their 
constitutional chief was alike binding upon both, j 

i 

GENERAL HANCOCK AT WASHINGTON IN 1867. 

Nothing in the career of General Hancock was 
more interesting than his occasional residence in 
the various towns and cities of the United States, 
North and South. He seems to be remembered 
favorably in all of them, and his universal 
comradeship with the men, and his graceful associ- 
ations with the ladies, were wonderfully emphasized 
by his experience in the war with Mexico, and his 
conflict with the Confederates. This double con- 
stituency lasted from 1 844, when he passed out of 
the Military Academy, until 1880, a long stretch 
of time — even 36 years. In that interval he has 
met with all phases of life, and is remembered by 
constituencies as varied as the latitudes and races. 
At fifty-seven years of age, Winfield S. Hancock is 
still a young man, unspoiled by office, unpledged to 
politicians, unembarrassed by pecuniary obligations, 
and singularly independent and free to follow his 
own course. A little scene that took place in 
Washington City, September 24, 1867, just before 
General Hancock was ordered off to New Orleans 
to take command of the 5th Military District, de- 
serves to be recalled. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. '^ 423 

An immense audience was assembled, and Gen. Hancock was intro- 
duced by Hon. Amasa Cobb, of Wisconsin, then a republican member 
of Congress, and now a republican judge of the Supreme Court of Ne- 
braska. Gen. Cobb said : 

" To me has been entrusted the pleasure and duty of appearing before 
you in the capacity of an old friend and comrade of the distinguished 
General now before you, to introduce him to you on this occasion. Six 
years ago I had the honor to be in command of a volunteer regiment in 
the Army of the Potomac, and with three other regiments had the good 
fortune to be placed under the command of the then newly appointed 
Brigadier General Hancock. During the long and tedious winter of 
1861 and 1862, we did duty in front of this capital, devoting the days to 
discipline and the nights to watching and picket. We were volunteers. 
The General was a regular army oflicer. All of you who passed through 
similar experience will bear me witness that volunteers felt the rigors of 
discipline when placed under such disciplinarians as that army was 
commanded by, and its discipline and after eflBciency was owing chiefly, 
if not wholly, to this fact. The winter passed away, and the army 
finally moved, and in the course of the war they were brought in front 
of the enemy. Gen. Hancock's first brigade succeeded in turning the 
enemy's left at Williamsburg, and afterwards he prevented the victori- 
ous enemy from driving the lines of M'Clellan from the Chickahominy, 
and later on it came up to save the day at Antietam, and now I esteem 
it a great honor bestowed upon me and my old regiment to have the 
opportunity of standing here by that great General's side, bearing testi- 
mony to his kindness of heart, his gallantry as a soldier, and his true- 
ness as a man." 

The speaker here turned to General Hancock 
and said: — 

** Allow me to say that to your new field of duty the hearts of our old 
brigade go with you, knowing that wherever you may go the country 
will have a brave and efficient soldier, and that flag a gallant defender." 

Gen. Hancock was received with much applause, 
and applied as follows: — 



424 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

"Citizens of Washington:—! thank you for this testimony of 
your confidence in my ability to perform my duty in a new and differ- 
ent sphere. Educated as a soldier in the military school of our country 
and on the field of the Mexican War and the American Rebellion, I 
need not assure yyou that my course as a district commander will be 
characterized by the same strict soldierly obedience to the law there 
taught me as a soldier. I know no other guide or higher duty. Mis- 
representation and misconstruction arising from the passions of the hour> 
and spread by those who do not know that devotion to duty has gov- 
erned my actions in every trying hour, may meet me, but I fear them 
not. My highest desire will be to perform the duties of my new sphere, 
not in the interest of parties or partisans, but for the benefit of my 
country, the honor of my profession, and I trust also for the welfare of 
the people committed to my care. I ask, then, citizens, that time may 
be permitted to develop my actions. Judge me by the deeds I may 
. perform, and conscious of my devotion to duty and my country, I shall 
be satisfied with your verdict, and if a generous country shall approve 
my actions in the future as it has in the past, my highest ambition will 
have been achieved. As a soldier I am to administer duties rather than 
discuss them. If I can administer them to the satisfaction of the coun- 
try, I shall indeed be happy in the consciousness of a duty performed. 
I am about to leave your city, the capital of our country — bearing the 
proud name of Washington. As an American citizen, the rapid devel- 
opment and increase of its wealth, beauty and prosperity, is a matter 
in which I am deeply interested. But far beyond this, citizens of Wash- 
ington, I rejoice with you that in the trying hour of the rebellion the 
capital of the nation contributed as fully as any State in the Union to 
the brave volunteer army which has demonstrated to the world the 
strength and invincibility of a Republican form of government. I shall 
carry with me the recollections of this occasion, and when I return may 
I not hope that none who are here will regret their participation in the 
honor you have done me to-night ? 

HANCOCK AT ANTIETAM. 

An old friend, living at Fort "Wayne, Indiana, 
who fought with Hancock at Antietam, and feels 
a deep interest in his election to the Presidency, 
sends me his experience in that decisive battle, in 
the columns of the Sentinel of that city : 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. " 425 

[From the Fort Wayne, Indiana, Sentinel.'} 

In a former communication I gave you Hancock at Fredericksburg 
as he appeared to me. I will now attempt to write of him as he was at 
Antietam, 

The Antietam Creek runs about due south, and empties into the Po- 
tomac River some eight miles above Harper's Ferry. On the 16th of 
September, 1862, Gen. Robert E. Lee, in command of the Confederate 
army, chose for his position of battle the irregular right-angle triangle, 
which made the Potomac his rear and the creek his front; his right 
resting on the creek near the river, commanded by Gen. Longstreet, the 
centre by Gen. Hill, and the left by Gen. Hood. 

At about noon a heavy rebel column was formed for the purpose of 
capturing battery A, 4th United States artillery, which had been doing 
terrible execution in the Confederate ranks. Gen. Hancock was ordered 
up to support the battery and drive the enemy back, which he did by 
rushing upon the Confederate advance with intrepid energy and with a 
violence which was irresistible, and by a series of gallant charges, made 
in the face of a most destructive Confederate fire, he drove them across 
the open field and beyond the Dunker church, compelling them to seek 
shelter under cover of the woods. At this moment, while directing one 
of our batteries, the brave Gen. Richardson was killed by a cannon ball. 
Gen. Hancock immediately took command of his division. The strug- 
gle was now desperate on both sides, and each entertained no desire for 
quarter, no wish to save or be saved. The enemy's lines were re-formed 
and drove Gen. Hooker's entire right wing back across the open ground. 
At short range and in the open field with a spirit of desperation both 
armies plied their deadly work, and in his extremity Hooker called on 
Hancock to save his right flank. Gen. Hancock responded at the 
double quick, and in pushing his way across the open ground was pun- 
ished terribly. The opressing forces here were literally torn to pieces. 

General Hancock, nothing daunted by his dreadful losses, was de- 
termined to hold his ground, and advancing to the front recklessly ex- 
posed his person to the enemy's bullets, which fell in showers around 
him. Regardless of danger he carefully examined the ground in his 
front, and finding a favorable site for a battery, he ordered forward our 



426 ' LIFE AND PUBLIC CABEER OF 

regiment to take, and hold that spot, until he could bring up the artil- 
lery. Hancock had now pressed the Confederates back, and was holding 
the ground around and beyond the Dunker church, but at this time Gen. 
Lee forwarded two fresh divisions to his left, and with this re-inforce- 
ment the Confederates again advanced, driving General Hancock back 
some distance. Here the fight was a perfect pandemonium, the sharp 
rattle of musketry, the heavy booming of cannon, the earth fairly shak- 
ing under the tread of two desperate armies, which crossed and recrossed 
that blood-stained field five separate times. The situation in which 
Hancock was placed was exceedingly critical, and Gen. Franklin was 
promptly ordered to his assistance. He hastened forward and Hancock 
again gave the order for an advance. In the meantime Hancock had 
brought up all of his artillery, and concentrating his batteries he opened 
a murderous fire upon the enemy's lines. 

He then fell heavily on Gen. Hill's extreme right, and forcing him 
back, compelled Hill to call for more reinforcements. For two hours 
the battle now raged. The rebels being again reinforced, a column 
was formed, under cover of the woods, to capture Hancock's batteries, 
which were doing terrible destruction to the rebel lines. The column 
started at a run to cross the open space and charge the guns, but the 
heavy fire of the artillery, and the cool, steady volleys of our infantry 
sent them reeling back to shelter, and covered the ground with their 
dead and wounded. It was now Hancock's time to charge, and with 
the brigades of Gens. French, Meagher and Morris, he at their head, 
raising himself in his saddle, swinging his sword high in air, he rushed 
like an avalanche upon the retreating foe, driving them more than half 
a mile. Again and again did Gen. Hill attempt to recover his lost 
ground, but in vain. Hancock had pushed the rebels to and through 
Sharpsburg, which he held as night spread her mantle of darkness over 
the field of death and put an end to one of the most sanguinary battles 
the world has ever seen. Gen. Hooker now came to inquire of Han- 
cock whether he could hold his ground on the morrow. Hancock re- 
plied, that "with the help of God and cold iron he could hold it for a 
week." On that small piece of ground, between Antietam and the 
Potomac, night found more than twenty thousand men dead or wound- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 427 

ed, but Gen. Hancock master of the situation on the right and in pos- 
session of the field. .__..... ^' " • ^' 

A FALSE MAGNANIMITY. 

There is nothing in modern life so shame- 
less as the false magnanimity of the ring managers 
of the Eepublican party. They boast of their 
forgiveness of the South, when they had nothing 
to do with it but to object to it ; and now that 
they take credit for it, they insolently attempt to 
fetter it with new conditions. They rally half a 
million office-holders and office-seekers to a new 
war upon the South, and try to cheat the South 
out of the pardon offered by the laws and sancti- 
fied by the Constitution, by declaring that the 
people of the forgiven Sections must be disfran- 
chised at the polls because they are still disloyal. 

This is to turn pardon into persecution. Now 
the glory of our country is that when we closed 
the war we made the Southern people our full 
equals by taking them back to our hearts and 
homes. But now the ring Kepublicans, under 
Garfield, are doing their level best to undo all the 
clemency of the founders of the Eepublican party, 
by showing that this clemency was only intended 
as another slavery. I call this a false magnanimity. 
A better word would be to call it a bold malignity. 
And the worst of it is, that in this bad world men 
are ready to take part, who, under other circum- 
stances, would shrink from such a code of morals 



428 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

as a complete abandonment of ordinary truth and 
personal dishonor. 

THE LESSON OF HALF A CENTURY. 

It will be forty-eight years next December since 
Andrew Jackson's proclamation, like the trumpet 
of the archangel, aroused the country, by directing 
attention to the dangers of nullification, preparing, 
thereby the masses for that civil war which ended 
in the maintenance of the sovereignty of the Re- 
public. When Daniel Webster, more than fifty 
years last, since, on the 26th of January 1830, 
opened his great speech in defense of the Union, 
he prefigured the great text of General Jackson's 
proclamation. Before he began that immortal 
appeal, he set us an example which it is well for 
us on the outpost of another conflict, to re-publish 
for our own guidance and the benefit of the people : 

" Mr. President : When the mariner has been tossed for many 
days in thick weather, and on an open sea, he naturally avails himself 
of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun to take his 
latitude and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his 
true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and before we float farther on 
the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that 
we may at least be able to conjecture where we now are." 

I have endeavored in these pages, now brought 
to a close, to direct the attention to the main point 
in this Presidential competition, and throughout 
have kept my eye upon the primary duty which 
should govern and conclude the struggle. Mr. 



WINFIELB SCOTT HANCOCK. 429 

Webster pleaded for the union of the States ; so 
does General Hancock plead to-day. The chief 
duty is how to preserve what cost so much agony 
to establish, so much ability to maintain,- and so 
much blood to save. 

The distressful past is dead, and nothing of the 
present is so strong as the fact that to-day there is 
not a living interest that does not desire the perpe- 
tuity of our free institutions, and real fraternity 
among our people. Those who remember the past 
only to recall the errors of our forefathers, to 
stimulate the exasperating memories of the civil 
war, and re-light fires of savage sectional hatred, 
are the busy enemies of this great foundation Duty. 
They have no real concern in union, because they 
have no real concern in conciliation. They have 
no interest in peace, because they have no interest 
in forgiveness. They place party above country, 
and again seize the Presidential election to open 
another page of recrimination to prolong the pas- 
sions which the real founders of the Republican 
party all tried to subdue before they were called 
away. * 

It was a Southern man and a Democrat who 
taught armed nullification the danger of assailing 
the Eepublic, in 1832, and it is a Northern man 
and a Democrat who in 1880, asked the people of 
both sections to come together in one mission of 
brotherhood. Both these men were soldiers: 
Jackson drove the British invader from the soil of 



430 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Louisiana on the 8th of January, 1815 ; Hancock 
drove the Confederate invader from the soil of 
Pennsylvania, on the 3d of July, 1863. The peo- 
ple of the North and South rewarded General 
Jackson by electing him twice to the Presidency, 
and now the people of the North and South are 
about to elect General Hancock to the Presidency, . 
not alone because he was among the bravest of the 
brave in the hour of direst peril, but was among 
the most magnanimous, and chiefly because he is 
now the leader of the only party pledged to peace 
and prosperity. 

I think I have shown clearly that General Han- 
cock's mission has been prepared for him by the 
events of the last twenty years, by the example and 
the efforts of the founders of the Republican party, 
by the guarantees made necessary to clinch and bind 
and rivet the Union together, by the treaty of 
Appomattox, and afterwards by the amendments 
of the Constitution, accepted solemnly by the 
Democratic party in National convention assem- 
bled, and reiterated by the Democratic candidates 
for President and Vice-president. I have directed 
attention to the increasing spirit of concord and 
harmony among the Southern people. I have 
pointed out the honest and vigorous revival of the 
national sentiment in the Southern states : the 
restoration of law and order, the improvement in 
the whites and the education of the blacks, the 
freedom of speech, of opinion and of intercourse. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. ' 431 

the amazing growth of material development, the 
complete abandonment of State Eights as para- 
mount to National sovereignty, the growth of the 
Southern population, the increase of Southern 
literature, the vast multiplication of social and 
commercial interests and obligations, and above 
all, that pride of Union, that love of country, that 
deep admiration for the dearest memories of the 
past — all of which had been subordinated and 
almost fairly blotted out by the hate and recrimi- 
tion of the Civil War, and the succeeding efforts at 
reconstruction. 

The congenial reader of these pages will see 
that I have faithfully labored to keep these objects 
in view. Could there be a nobler duty than that 
which restores kindness in our National household ? 
Is there on earth a more inspiring spectacle than the 
reconciliation of families, and the forgiveness of 
kindred, a purer gospel than that forbearance 
which never ceases to be a virtue ? If one man is 
happier when he brings two friends long alienated 
together, what must be the feelings of the patriot 
who gives himself up to the restoration of love 
and honor and faith and confidence among forty- 
eight millions of the best people on earth ? Who 
would not give up party to a mission which has 
induced thousands to give up their lives ? The 
Americans who fought at Gettysburg and in all the 
other historic fields of our Civil War, were not 
kindled into personal hate. Each side contended 



432 ' LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

for its principal convictions, but all were still 
at heart loyal citizens of one country in April of 
1865. 

I was told by General Meade himself, that 
when there was a pause in the negotiations before 
the final treaty between Lee and Grant, the terror 
that prevailed among the opposing lines, between 
the Union soldiers on the one side, and the Con- 
federate soldiers on the other side, lest there 
might be some misunderstanding, was akin to the 
agony of a starving garrison waiting for food 
and water. And when finally the word was given 
that truce had been declared, and that peace had 
come and come to stay, a scene took place that all 
the inspiration of the orator and the genius of the 
painter would have been required to describe. The 
Union veterans poured into the camp of the Con- 
federates, rushed to shake hands with them, took 
them into their tents, gave them food and refresh- 
ment, and so a love-feast and a libation of joy, 
came after the bloody sacrifice and the prolonged 
conflict that begun in 1860 and only closed when 
Abraham Lincoln passed away in Washington, 
breathing forgiveness to the misguided people of 
the South. 

It is this lesson that I have tried to extract 
from our Civil War, and if that story should be 
crowned by the election of General Hancock to 
the Presidency in next November, we, in 1881, 
begin a half century of dazzling Freedom 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 433 

and Peace. It will not be like that which 
closed in April of 1865, not a half century of 
heresies, mischievous statesmanship, illogical hatred 
and merciless sectionalism, assailed motives, quar- 
relling families, blasted trade, languished com- 
merce, personal government, personal malignity, 
personal punishment, the elevation of inferior and 
bad men, the banishment from place of high intel- 
lect and ripe experience; but a half century such 
as alone can come to a people that had got rid of 
slavery, had saved the only Republic on earth, 
and laid the foundations of good government deep 
in the hearts of the people, strong enough to 
endure all the storms of time. 

EOSECRANS ON HANCOCK. 

At a great Democratic ratification meeting in San Francisco, June 25, 
General Ropecrans, as Chairman, being introduced, said : " Fellow- 
citizens, to preside over an assemblage such as this, composed of men dis- 
tinguished in all the professions, in commerce, in trade, in the arts — 
men with patriotism and intelligence, whose purpose in meeting here is 
so well understood, is certainly a very great honor, but superadded to 
that honor is also the fact that they assembled here to perform a very 
great and very solemn duty. They are to give the voice of this great 
State and express the judgment on behalf of a very vast number of their 
fellow-citizens upon the selections made in Cincinnati for the candidates 
for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency to be voted for by the Demo- 
cratic people. That adds to the interest, but neither of these would 
suffice to have induced me to appear in public — not that I lack interest 
in the Democracy. Few have made more sacrifices for those principles 
than I have from the beginning of the war until this day. [Cheers.] 
Nor would I have been here under any ordinary circumstances, al- 



434 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

though as a citizen of this republic nothing that concerns its future is 
indifferent to me ; but till now I have not seen a time when it appeared 
to me a great and solemn duty to stand out in favor of actual Demo- 
cratic work. The Democratic convention at Cincinnati has proposed a 
candidate for President of the United States, to whom, when a young 
man, I taught civil and military engineering, and know him very well. 
He is a clean man — [loud cheers] — a gallant and prudent commander, 
and a brave and chivalrous officer. I think the nomination promises to 
do things for the future which ought to make every patriotic man's 
heart leap for joy.'' [Loud cheers.] 

GENERAL HANCOCK RECEIVING THE NEWS OF HIS 

NOMINATION. 

I was looking out of my bay window, corner of 
Seventh and Chestnut Streets, Philadelphia, on a 
bright Saturday morning, June 19 th, when a band 
of music, sounding from the east, attracted my at- 
tention, and in a few moments the Americus Club, 
a leading Democratic organization in that city, ap- 
peared on the sidewalk, and at the head of it was 
my old friend, Daniel Dougherty, Esq. 

The beautiful day, the stalwart men, the cheer- 
ing music, the shouting crowds, added somewhat 
to my surprise, as it did to the evident satisfaction 
of Dougherty, who kissed his hand as he passed on 
his way to the Democratic National Convention at 
Cincinnati, where, as I have elsewhere written, he 
made for himself new fame by his great speech in 
favor of Hancock. 

I did not conceal my admiration for Mr. 
Dougherty's course, nor did I hesitate to express 



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WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 437 

the hope that General Hancock might be made the 
standard-bearer of my old party for president of 
the United States. 

General Garfield was a relief from the crowd of 
men who had hounded General Grant at Chicago. 
I spoke of him as I felt in that spirit, until I saw 
the lasting record as it was revealed by his own 
friends, most of which, up to that time, almost 
entirely unknown to me. 

On the 23d of June, 1880, General Hancock 
was nominated at Cincinnati, and I can well 
imagine his own emotions when the congratula- 
tions upon that event were sent to him at Gover- 
nor's Island, excited by the unanimity with which 
his nomination was crowned, glorified by the splen- 
dors of the rhetoric of Dougherty and Daniel. 

I sent a congratulatory dispatch to Mr. Dough- 
erty before General Hancock's nomination, and 
when that nomination came I congratulated 
General Hancock, receiving from him in return a 
quick and graceful reply. 

The magnetism of the nomination, like the 
magnetism of the man himself, flew like wild- 
fire over the country. It was hailed with delight 
in Europe by all classes of our visiting countrymen. 
A correspondent in Paris states that the delight of 
the Northern and Southern men when the news 
of Hancock's nomination arrived there, was some- 
thing like the delight of the North when they 
heard the war was over, and the surprise of the 



438 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

South when they heard that General Grant had 
led the way for their forgiveness. 

How it was received in Philadelphia until the 
ring poUticians began to try to convince our peo- 
ple that General Hancock did nothing for them 
at Gettysburg, on the ^id of July 1863, the world 
knows. On that 23d of June, 1880, our Bankers 
recollect that on the 3d of July, 1863, they were 
packing up their treasures for New York, expect- 
ing the arrival of the Confederate Army across the 
Schuylkill. Our clergy recollect how they had 
offered thanksgiving to God for the opportune ar- 
rival of General Hancock on Cemetery Hill, and 
even the politicians of the present hour recol- 
lect their own joy over the rescue. The halt 
in this storm over his nomination for the Presi- 
dency was, however, a very short one. And 
now, as I write, the boom which began with 
Dougherty marching along the streets on the 19th 
of June is resounding all over the land. 

Several weeks after, on Tuesday, July 14th, the 
committee of the Cincinnati Convention notified 
General Hancock and Mr. English of their nomi- 
nations for President and Vice-President, and vis- 
ited Governor's Island to fulfil that duty. The 
scene that took place then was in itself so pic- 
turesque, that I regret I can give no space to the 
description. 

The following account is taken from the New 
York World, of Wednesday, July 14th. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. . 439 

HANCOCK AND ENGLISH FOKMALLY NOTIFIED OF THEIR 

NOMINATION. 

The committee appointed by the Cincinnati Con- 
vention to notify General Hancock and Mr. Eng- 
lish of their nomination for President and Vice- 
President of the United States visited Governor's 
Island yesterday to fulfil that duty. The special 
committee appointed for the purpose was led by 
Senator John P. Stockton, its chairman, and had 
in turn invited the members of the National Com- 
mittee to go to Governor's Island with them. At 
10 o'clock in the morning the sub-commitee on the 
letters to the two candidates reported to the full 
committee charged with their presentation, and after 
official copies had been made, Secretary Bell called 
the States in alphabetical order and the commit- 
tee-men signed the letters. Wm. H. Green, of Illi- 
nois, was absent and S. S. Marshall signed as his 
proxy. 0. B. Hurd signed for De Forest Sherman, 
of Indiana, ex-Governor John McEnerv for John 
Clegg, of Louisiana, and J. S. Morton for F. A. 
Harman, of Nebraska. With these exceptions the 
letters were signed by the committee-men appoint- 
ed at Cincinnati. Every State in the Union was 
represented, and the letters, when signed, bore the 
names of many men of national reputation. 

At 2 o'clock a number of coaches arrived, and the committee-men 
were conveyed to the foot of West Twenty-third Street, where the Wm. 
Fletcher lay with colors flying. The members of the National Com- 
mittee came down from the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and said they had had 



440 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER Ob 

a short harmonious meeting, and had unanimously and immediately 
upon assembling chosen Senator W. H. Barnum, of Connecticut, Chair- 
man, and Mayor F. O. Prince, of Boston, Secretary. The party on the 
Fletcher, as she left her pier at 12.45, included all the signing members 
of the committee and the proxies named, and all of the members of the 
National Committee. Among others were Milton Sayler, of Ohio ; 
Senator Eansom, of North Carolina, and W. Armstrong, of Pennsyl- 
vania. Senator Wm. A. Wallace, of Pennsylvania, was not present, 
being busy in the city. In all there were about one hundred gentlemen 
on the boat. At 1 o'clock a landing was made at the steamboat dock 
on Governor's Island. The military post, which is free to the visit of 
any person, without pass or permit, was about its business as usual. The 
sentries passed to and fro, and in the court-martial room the members 
of the Warren Court of Inquiry were busy reading the record. Gen- 
eral Hancock was at home, but in great sorrow at the death of his favo- 
rite grandchild, Winfield Scott Hancock, four months old, who had re- 
ceived that name the night before at the hands of the Eev. Dr. Thomp- 
son, of Trinity Church. The child had died at 6 in the morning, and 
General Hancock had watched with it most of the night. 

The two committees went up the shelving pathway from the landing 
and up the steps of the parapet landing to the green, headed by John 
W. Stevenson, Chairman of the Convention, and John P. Stockton, 
Chairman of the Special Committee. There were already a number of 
visitors to the island sauntering about on the lawns under the trees, en- 
joying the shade and the cool breeze. The ceremony was made as brief 
as possible. General Hancock met the delegation as it entered the 
house with a " Good-morning, gentlemen," and led the way to the back 
parlor. This apartment was soon filled, and standing before a dark book- 
case at the east end of the room, General Hancock listened to the for- 
mal announcement of his nomination. Senator Stockton, who stood 
beside Mr. Stevenson, said : 

"General Hancock, I have the honor to introduce to you Mr. John 
W. Stevenson, the Chairman of the Democratic National Convention 
lately held at Cincinnati, and I have the further honor of presenting 
to you the committee appointed by that body to wait upon you and 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 441 

notify you of your nomination — your unanimous nomination — for the 
highest office in the gift of the people. It is a source of great satisfac- 
tion to the committee in making this announcement to you to say that 
your nomination was not secured by the solicitations of personal or po- 
litical friends, but was the spontaneous choice of that convention, actu- 
ated by a patriotic duty. One of the ablest and wisest bodies of your 
countrymen ever assembled have given you this nomination with per- 
fect unanimity. And, General, since that convention we have been to 
our homes, and we have seen our friends, we have seen the Democratic 
masses, and the conservative people of this country, and with one 
accord they ratify the action of that convention. So that we cannot bu^ 
believe, as we do, that your election will be an acomplished fact. We 
cannot doubt it, and we believe that after the election is over the great 
principle of American liberty will still be the inheritance of the people 
and established forever. And now in the name of the National Demo- 
cratic party, and by virtue of the power entrusted to this committee, as 
its Chairman I have the honor to hand to its Secretary a communica- 
tion in writing informing you officially of your nomination." 

As he finished speaking Senator Stockton handed to Mr. Bell, who 
stood beside him, the original of the letter from the committee, and it 
was read as follows : 

"New York, July 13, 1880. 
" Major- General W. 8. Hancock, 
" Sir : The National Convention of the Democratic party which as- 
sembled at Cincinnati on the 23d of last month unanimously nominated 
you as their candidate for President of the United States. We have 
been directed to inform you of the nomination for this exalted trust, 
and request your acceptance. In accordance with the uniform custom 
of the Democratic party the convention have announced their views 
upon the important issues which are before the country in a series of 
resolutions to which we invite your attention. These resolutions era- 
body the general principles upon which the Democratic party demand 
that the Government shall be conducted, and they also emphatically 
condemn the maladministration of the Government by the party in 
power, its crimes against the Constitution and especially against the 
rights of the people to choose and install their President, which have 
wrought so much injury and dishonor to our country. That which 
chiefly inspired your nomination was the fact that you had conspicuous- 
ly recognized and exemplified the yearning of the American people for 
reconciliation and brotherhood under the shield of the Constitution, 
with all its jealous care and guarantees for the rights of persons and of 



442 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

States. Your nomination was not made alone because in the midst of 
arms you illustrated the highest qualities of the soldier, but because, 
when the war had ended, and when, in recognition of your courage and 
fidelity you were placed in command of a })art of the Union undergoing 
the process of restoration, and while you were thus clothed with abso- 
lute power, you used it not to subvert, but to sustain the civil laws and 
the rights they were established to protect. Your fidelity to those 
principles, manifested in the important trusts heretofore confided to your 
care gives proof that they will control your administration of the Na- 
tional Government, and assures the country that our indissoluble Union 
of indestructible States and the Constitution with its wise distribution of 
power and regard for the boundaries of State and Federal authority will 
not suffer in your hands; that you will maintain the subordination of the 
military to the civil power, and will accomplish the purification of the 
public service ; and especially that the Government which we love will be 
free from the reproach or stain of sectional agitation or malice in any 
shape or form. Rejoicing in common with the masses of the American 
people upon this bright promise for the future of our country, we wish 
also to express to you personally the assurance of the general esteem and 
confidence which have summoned you to this high duty and aid you 
in its performance. Your fellow-citizens. John W. Stevenson, 

'' President of the Convention. 
''Nicholas M. Bell, Secretary." 

When the reading of the names of the committee-men also signed to 
the letter was finished, General Hancock turned to the delegates who 
were crowded into the parlor and about him in a compact group and 
said : 

" Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Cammittee : I appreciate the 
honor conferred upon me by the Democratic National Convention, lately 
assembled in Cincinnati, and I thank you for your courtesy in making 
known that honor to me. As soon as time permits me to give to the 
subject that careful attention belonging to it I shall prepare and shall 
send you a reply of a formal nature accepting the nomination tendered 
me by the Democratic party for the office of President of the United 
States." (Applause.) 

Then General Hancock stepped forward and began shaking hands 
with the various members of the committee who were known to him, 
and receiving introductions to others. After a few minutes he retired 
into the front parlor, and many of the delegates sought the cool piazzas 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 443 

at the front and rear of the house overlooking one the green and the 
other the Buttermilk Channel. Presently Senator Stockton asked for 
Mr. English, and that gentleman, who had been standing among the 
delegation, took the place recently occupied by General Hancock. 
General Stockton said to him : 

'^ Sir : The Cincinnati Convention, with a unanimity unparalleled, 
decided upon its nominees, and appointed us as a committee to wait 
upon you at such time and place as would be most agreeable to you, and 
inform you in person and in writing of your nomination. We congrat- 
ulate ourselves and the people on the opportunity of tendering to you 
the nomination to the office of Vice-President of the United States. 
The official announcement of your nomination will be read to you by 
the Secretary." 

Mr. Bell then read the following letter: 

"New For A:, July 13, 1880. 

Hon. William H. English : 

Dear Sir : By direction of the National Democratic Convention, 
which assembled at Cincinnati on June 22d last, it becomes our pleas- 
ant duty to notify you that you unanimously were nominated by that 
body for the office of Vice-President of the United States. Your large 
experience in the affiiirs of Government, your able discharge of the 
many trusts committed to your hands, your steadfast devotion to Demo- 
cratic principles and the uprightness of your private character gave 
assurance to the Democracy that you are worthy and well qualified to 
perform the duties of that high position and commended you to them 
for the nomination which they conferred. While your personal quali- 
ties and your public services well merited this honor, the action of the 
Convention was no doubt designed not only to vindicate their apprecia- 
tion of yourself, but as well to testify their profound respect for the 
Democracy of Indiana your native state, with whose manly struggles 
you have been so long identified and in whose glorious achievements 
you have shared. The Convention set forth its views upon the leading 
political issues which are now before the people in a series of resolu- 
tions, a copy of which we have the honor to present to you and to 
which your attention is respectfully requested. It is our earnest hope 
that these views may meet with your approbation, and that you will 
accept the nomination which is now tendered. With sentiments of 
high esteem, we are, respectfully yours, 

" John W. Stevenson, President of Convention, 
" Nicholas M. Bell, Secretary." 



444 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

This letter, like the letter to General Hancock, was accompanied by 
an engrossed copy of the platform of the Convention, arranged to fold 
■with the letter into a red Russia case. Upon receiving the packet, Mr. 
English bowed and said : 

" Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee : As a practical busi- 
ness-man, not much accustomed to indirection of action or circumlocu- 
tion of speech, I will say briefly and in a few words that I accept the 
high trust which you have tendered me, with feelings of profound 
gratitude, and that 1 will at an early date formally and in writing make 
^he acceptance which I am informed is usual on such occasions. In 
doing this, I fully realize the great responsibility of the situation, the 
care, the turmoil, the anxiety, the misrepresentation, and the abuse 
which are certain to follow, and I understand thoroughly that all the 
resources and power of our political foes from all parts of the land wil^ 
be concentrated against us in Indiana, my native State, where the firs^ 
grand battle— and probably the most important of all — is to be fought* 
But there are great occasions where the discharge of high patriotic 
duties are to be considered above all personal considerations, and I 
shall not disregard the unanimous voice of the representatives of a ma- 
jority of the American people, which you speak here to-day. (Applause.) 
I am profoundly grateful for the high honor which has been conferred 
upon me, and I have an abiding faith that with the favor of God and 
of the people we shall succeed in this conflict." (Applause.) 

Half an hour had been consumed in thus performing the duties im- 
posed upon the committee by the Convention. The committee-men 
and Mr. English bade adieu to General Hancock, and at 2.15 the steam- 
boat Fletcher and the Kiley, the regular ferry-boat, took them back to 
the city. Many of them went at once to Manhattan Beach. 

NEARLY THREE MILLION SOLDIERS. 

George Jacob Holyoke, a recent English traveler, 
refers in his subsequent letters to one hundred 
thousand office-holders, each having at least nine de- 
pendents to work to keej) him where he is, a state- 
ment nearer the truth than most foreisfners attain 
when writing about the United States — but a rough 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 445 

text to arouse serious apprehension in many minds. 
And yet, how far inferior this large army of place- 
men and their adherents, is, when compared with 
the 2,678,967 Americans who fought to maintain 
the government between 1861 and 1865. Many 
of this multitude have been called to their long: 
homes, but their survivors and their own posterity 
are still the real defenders of the Republic. I give 
the official figures in the statement which follows, 
and direct attention, not only to the fact that Penn- 
sylvania put into the service, during our civil war, 
over 366,000 of her citizens, while New York con- 
tributed 467,047, to which the same rule may be 
applied, to those who survive, and to the posterity 
of those who have gone. 

THE NUMBER FURNISHED BY EACH STATE AND TERRITORY DURING 

THE REBELIilON, 

A statement has been issued by the War Depart- 
ment giving the number of men furnished the 
Union Army by each State and Territory and the 
District of Columbia from April 15th, 1861, to the 
close of the war of the rebellion. It shows that 
the total number of volunteers was 2,678,967, di- 
vided as follows : 

Maine, 72,114 

New Hampshire, 36,629 

Vermont, 35,262 

Massachusetts, 152,048 

Ehode Island, 23,699 

Connecticut, 57,379 

New York, 467,047 



446 LIFE AND PUBLIC CABEEB OF 

New Jersey, 81,010 

Pennsylvania, 366,107 

Delaware, 13,670 

Maryland, 50,316 

West Virginia, 32,068 

District of Columbia, 16,872 

Ohio 319,659 

Indiana, 197,147 

Illinois, 259,147 

Michigan, 89,372 

Wisconsin, 96,424 

Minnesota, 25,052 

Iowa, 76,309 

Missouri,.... < 109,111 

Kentucky, 79,025 

Kansas, 20,151 

Tennessee, = 31,092 

Arkansas, • 8,289 

North Carolina,.... 3,156 

California, << 15,725 

Nevada, 1,080 

Oregon, 1,810 

Washington Territory, ' 964 

Nebraska Territory, 3,157 

Colorado Territory, 4,903 

Dakota Territory, 206 

New Mexico Territory, 6,561 

Alabama, 2,576 

Florida, 1,290 

Louisiana, 8,224 

Mississippi, - 545 

Texas, 1,965 

Indian Nation, 35,C30 

Subjoined also is a statement showing how 
many regiments in Pennsylvania that fought 

under Hancock at Gettysburg, on the 3d of July, 
1868. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 



447 



SECOND ARMY CORPS. 

MAJ. GEN. WINFIELD S. HANCOCK. 

After the death of Gen. Keynolds, Gen. Hancock was assigned to the 
command of all the troops on the field of battle, relieving Gen. Howard, 
who had succeeded Gen. Eeynolds. Gen. Gibbon, of the Second Divi- 
sion, assumed command of the corps. These assignments terminated on 
the evening of July 1st. Similar changes in commanders occurred dur- 
ing the battle of the 2d, when Gen. Hancock was put in command of 
the Third Corps, in addition to that of his own. 

FIRST DIVISION. 

BRIG. GEN. JOHN C. CALDWELL. 



First Brigade. 

(1) Col. E. E. Cross. 

(2) Col. H. B. McKeen. 
5th New Hampshire. 
61st New York. 

81st Pennsylvania. 
148th Pennsylvania. 

Second Brigade. 
Col. Patrick Kelly. 
28th Massachusetts. 
63d New York. 
69 th New York. 
88th New York. 
116th Pennsylvania. 



Third Brigade. 

(1) Brig. Gen. S. K. Zook. 

(2) liieut. Col. John Eraser, 
52d New York. 

57th New York. 
66th New York. 
140th Pennsylvania. 

Fourth Brigade. 
Col. John K. Brooke. 
27th Connecticut. 
64th New York. 
53d Pennsylvania. 
145th Pennsylvania. 
2d Delaware. 



THIRD DIVISION. 

BRIG. GEN. ALEXANDER HAYS. 

First Brigade. 

Col. S. S. Carroll. 
4th Ohio. 
8th Ohio. 
14th Indiana. 
7th Virginia. 



Second Brigade. 

(1) Col. Thomas A. Smyth. 

(2) Lieut. Col. E. E. Pierce. 
14th Connecticut. 
10th New York (battalion). 
108th New York. 
12th New Jersey. 

1st Delaware. 



448 



LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 



Third Brigade. 

(1) Col. G. S. Willard. 

(2) Col. Eliakim Sherrill. 

(3) Lieut. Col. James M. Bull. 
39th New York. 

111th New York. 
125th New York. 
126th New York. 

Artillery Brigade. 
Captain J. G. Hazard, 

A, 1st Rhode Island. 

B, 1st Rhode Island. 
1, 1st United States. 
A, 4th United States. 

Cavalry Squadron. 
Captain Riley Johnson. 
D and K 6th New York. 

Second Division. 

(1) Brig. Gen. John Gihbon. 

(2) Brig. Gen. Wm. Harrow. 



First Brigade. 

(1) Brig. Gen. Wm. Harrow. 

(2) Col. Francis E. Heath. 
19th Maine. 

15th Massachusetts. 
82d New York. 
1st Minnesota. 

Second Brigade. 
Brig. Gen. A. S. Webb. 
69th Pennsylvania. 
71st Pennsylvania. 
72d Pennsylvania. 
106th Pennsylvania. 

Third Brigade. 
Col. N. J. Hall. 
19th Massachusetts. 
20th Massachusetts. 
42d New York. 
59th New York, 
7th Michigan. 

Unattached. 
Andrew Sharpshooters. 



Of all this enormous mass of the living, and 
of the children of the dead, there is not one who 
does not take an interest in the pending struggle 
for the Presidency, and who, whatever political 
party he belongs to, will not weigh with more or 
less consideration the arguments addressed to his 
reason and his prejudice — a far more efficient 
grand jury than the placemen and their depend- 
ents, because much more disinterested. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 449 

The question above all others that concerns 
the soldier, after his own sense of honor and his 
unforgetting love of his associates, is that which 
relates to peace between the sections. A good 
soldier does not cease to be a citizen when the war 
is over. He rather remembers his early politics, 
regardless only of local prejudices, and cherishing 
with more fervor the broader views implanted by 
his travels and his perils. Of these more than 
two millions and a half, many of those who were 
Democrats became Republicans before the civil 
was was over, and those who entered as Republi- 
cans became tolerant, not only of those who differed 
from them them in their own army, but of those 
who were forced into the other or Southern army. 
ITence these classes recoil ; first, from the visible 
attempt of the present Republican politicians to 
renew strife between the Sections ; second, to put a 
brand uponGeneral Hancock because he is a Demo- 
crat ; and lastly, to suppose that every Republican 
soldier is bound to vote to keep the Republican 
politicians in office, who never had any higher 
motive for public service than that of putting 
public money into their pockets. 

MILITAEY RECORD OF GEN. WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 

Cadet of the U. S. Military Academy from July 1, 1840, to July 1, 
1844, when he was graduated and promoted to the army to Brev. Sec- 
ond Lieutenant, 6th Infantry, July 1, 1844. 
' Served on frontier duty at Fort Towson, I. T., 1844-45;; and at Fort 



450 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Wacliita, I. T., 1845-47 ; on recruiting service, 1847 ; in the war with 
Mexico 

{Second Lieutenant of Sixth Infantry, June 18, 1846,) 

1847-48, being engaged in the defense of Convoy at the National Bridge, 
August 12, 1847, — skirmish at Plan del Rio, August 15, 1847, — capture 
of San Antonio, August 20, 1847, — battle of Churubusco, August 20, 1847, 
— battle of 

[Bvt. First Lieutenant, August 20, 1847, for gallant and meritori- 
ous conduct in the battles of Gontreras and Churubusco, 
Mexico, ) 

Molino del Rey, September 8, 1847, and assault and capture of the City 
of Mexico, September 13-14, 1847; in garrison at Jefferson barracks, 
Missouri, 1848; as Quartermaster, Sixth Infantry, June 30, 1848, to 
October 1, 1849, and Adjutant, October 1, 1849, to November 7, 1855; 
at regimental headquarters at Fort Crawford, Iowa, 1848-1849, — St. 
Louis, Missouri, 1849-51, and Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, 1851-52 

{First Lieutenant Sixth Infantry, January 27, 1853, to June 5, 

I860,) 

1852-55; as Assistant Adjutant General of the Department of the West, 
headquarters at St. Louis, Missouri, June 19 to November 27, 1855; 
and on Quartermaster duty at 

{Captain Staff— Assistant Quartermaster, November 7, 1855,) 

Fort Myers, Florida, 1856-57, during hostilities against the 
Seminole Indians; Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, with troops quel- 
ling Kansas disturbances, August 1, to December 31, 1857, and at 
Depot, January 1, to March 31, 1858; at headquarters of Utah rein- 
forcements, May 15, to July 15, 1858 ; on march with Sixth Infantry 
from Fort Bridger, Utah, to California, August 13, to November 15, 
1858, and Chief Quartermaster of Southern District of California, at 
Los Angelos, May 5, 1859, to August 3, 1861. 

Served during the Rebellion of the seceding States, 1861-66, in the 
defenses of Washington, D. C, September, 1861, — March, 1862, in the 
Virginia Peninsula 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 451 

{Brigadier General U. S. Volunteers, September 23, 1S61,) 

campaign (Army of the Potomac) March, — August, 1862, being en- 
gaged in the siege of Yorktown, April 5 to May 4, 1862, — battle of 
Williamsburg, May 5, 1862, — battle of Chickahominy, June 27, 1862, 
action of Gelding's Farm, June 28, 1862, — battle of Savage Station, 
June 29, 1862,— battle of White Oak Swamp, June 30, 1862,— and re- 
treat to Harrison's Landing, July 1,-4, 1862; on the movement to Cen- 
treville, Virginia, August,-September, 1862; in the Maryland cam- 
paign (Army of the Potomac), September,-November, 1862, being en- 
gaged in the battle of Crampton's Pass, South Mountain, September 14, 
1862, — reconnoisance from Harper's Ferry to Charlestown, Virginia, 
October 10-11, 1862, — and march to Falmouth, Virginia, October-No- 
vember, 1862; in the Rappahannock 

{Major General U. S. Volunteers, Nov. 29, 1862, to July 26, 

1866,) 

campaign (Army of the Potomac), December, 1862,- June, 1863, being 
engaged in the battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862, — and 
battle of Chancellorsville, May 2-4, 1863; in the Pennsylvania cam- 
paign, June-July, 1863, in command of Second Corps of the Army of 
the Potomac, being engaged in the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3, 
1863, where he was severely wounded in the repulse of Longstreet's 
attack upon our left centre, which he at the time commanded. 

On sick leave of absence, disabled by wound, July 4,-December 27, 
1863; 

{Major Staff Quartermaster, U. S. Army, Nov. 30, 1863,) 

in command of, and recruiting Second Army Corps, January-March 
1864 ; in the Eichmond campaign, commanding Second Corps of Army 
of the Potomac, being engaged in the Battle of the Wilderness, May 
5-6, 1864,— Battles of Spottsylvania, May 9-20, 1864,— Battle of North 
Anna, May 23-24, 1864,— Battle of Tolopotomy, May 29-31, 1864,— 
Battle of Cold Harbor, June 3, 1864, and operations in its vicinity> 
June 3-12, 1864, — march to James River, June 12-15, 1864, — and Bat- 
tle before Petersburg, June 16-18, 1864 ; on sick leave of absence on 
account of breaking out of Gettysburg wound, June 19-27, 1864 ; in 



452 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

operations about Petersburg, in command of Second Corps, Army of 
the Potomac, being engaged in the battles of Deep Bottom (in com- 
mand), July 27-29, and 

[Brigadier General, U. S. Army, August 12, 1864,) 

August 15-20, 1864, — Battle of Eeam's Station (in command), August 
25, 1864, — Battle of Boydton Plank Eoad (in command), October 27, 
1864, — and siege of Petersburg, June 15-November 26, 1864; at 
Washington, D. C, organizing the First Army Corps of Veterans, 
November 27, 1864, to February 27, 1865 ; in command of Department 
of West Virginia, and temporarily of the Middle Military Division 
and Army of the Shenandoah, February 27 to July 18, 1865 ; 

{Bvt. Major General, U. S. Army, March 13, 1865, for gallant 
and meritorious services at the Battle of Spottsylvania, Vir- 
ginia,) 

of the Middle Department, July 18, 1865, to August 10, 1866 ; 

(Major General U. S. Army, July 26, 1866,) 

on Board for retiring disabled officers, at Philadelphia, Pa., November 
27, 1865 to August 30, 1866, and on Board to make recommendations 
in regard to ordnance, January 30 to June 4, 1866 ; in command of the 
Department of Missouri, August 20, 1866, to September 12, 1867, being 
engaged on expedition against the Indians of the plains ; in command 
of the Fifth Military District, November 29, 1867, to March 16, 1868,— 
of the Division of the Atlantic, March 31, 1868, to March 5, 1869,— of 
the Department of Dakota, May 17, 1869, to December 3, 1872, — of the 
Division of the Atlantic, headquarters New York City, December 16, 
1872, and of the Department of the East, December 16, 1872, to October 
29, 1873, and November 8, 1877 ; Member of the Court of Inquiry in 
the case of General Dyer, November 9, 1868, to May 15, 1869, — and of 
Board to examine officers unfit for the proper discharge of their duties> 
etc., October 17, 1870, to June 3, 1871. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 453 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE LADIES OF THE WHITE HOUSE. 

FROM the earliest days of civilization, woman 
has figured prominently in society and govern- 
ment. The records of female influence in- 
England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, are 
simply delightful. And while this sort of literature 
is universally sought from many motives, the wo- 
men most conspicuous in history are those that 
are renowned for virtue as well as beauty, though 
there are thousands of instances proving the last 
more potent than the first. 

Modern experience discloses a severer state of 
female morality in foreign governments. Queen 
Victoria, ex-Empress Eugenie, the beautiful Queen 
of Italy, the new Queen of Spain, the wife of the 
President of France (Madame Grevy), the eques- 
trienne Queen of Austria, the venerable Empress 
of Germany, and the Crown Princess, the daughter 
of Victoria — are types of a better era and a 
higher culture. 



454 LIFE AND PUBLIC CABEEB OF 

When we turn to our own country, nothing is 
more creditable to republican institutions than the 
ladies of our early and recent Chief Magistrates. 
From Colonial days, from Mrs. Martha Washing- 
ton, from the brilliant entertainment in Washing- 
ton's camp, near Middlebrook, in celebration of 
the anniversary of the American alliance with 
France, and the subscription balls in Philadelphia, 
down to her last appearance, when she retired to 
private life, she was accustomed to speak of her 
public days in New York and Philadelphia as her 
"lost days," preferring home comfort and seclusion 
to the dazzle and dress of public life. 

Strange to say, the wife of John Hancock, the 
great Boston patriot, who was noted for his genial 
home, open house, and sumptuous table, was a 
woman almost as full of energy as her husband, 
and an amusing story is told of Mrs. Washington 
and Mrs. Hancock, who were very intimate friends. 
Mrs. Washington would say to Mrs. Hancock : 
"There is a difference in our stations; your hus- 
band is in the cabinet, but mine is on the battle- 
field." As showing the habits of those days, so 
different from our own, and forming such a con- 
trast to the plain dignity and quiet elegance of 
General Hancock and his family at Governor's 
Island, it is related that the first Mrs. Hancock's 
wedding fan was from Paris, made of white kid, 
painted with appropriate designs. Fan-mounting 
was then done in this country by ladies. The 



WINFIELB SCOTT HANCOCK. 455 

christening suit of her baby came from England, 
and was of embroidered linen, and stomacher of 
muslin and brocaded lace. 

After John Hancock's death, she was one of the 
wonders of the age, and as his widow was visited, 
until the close of her life, by distinguished persons 
from foreign countries, as well as her own. 

An amusing incident is told of John Hancock 
and Samuel Adams. As the Governor, Hancock, 
was one day driving out with his wife, he met 
Sam. Adams walking, with the Sheriff beside him. 
Hancock asked, "Why, what is the matter"?" 
Adams replied, ^^I am going to jail, as I cannot 
satisfy the demands of my creditors." The Gover- 
nor settled the demands and bade the Sheriff leave 
his prisoner. Many a time was his purse opened 
for Sam. Adams' benefit under similar circumstan- 
ces, and many a time did he help the poor and the 
needy. 

The Boston Mrs. Hancock was acknowledged to 
possess rare beauty, a courtly manner, a high-toned 
spirit, fine powers of conversation, dressed with 
care and very dignified. She was one of the 
Quincys. 

But notwithstanding the hyper-criticisms of the 
Maw worms of the day, the fact is growing clearer 
that the American women are becoming more 
interested in public affairs every day; and it is 
pleasant to be reminded, that the wives of the two 
chief candidates for President for 1880 are espe- 



456 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

cially cultivated and sensible. The modern news- 
paper reporter has become a sort of Christopher 
Columbus, ever looking for new characters, as the 
world-seeking Genoese sought for new worlds. 
Nothing escapes these ubiquitous inquirers. Presi- 
dential aspirants are examined with as merciless a 
severity as if they were candidates for pope, 
while all their sisters, and their cousins, and 
their aunts, and notably their wives, are subjected 
to a similar inventory. It was not so in the olden 
time, save as to the men. Washington, Adams, 
Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Jackson, Lincoln, 
and Grant, were very thoroughly overhauled, pri- 
vately and publicly ; but the ladies of the White 
House, with two or three exceptions, have, as a rule, 
passed the ordeal of public life tranquilly and 
easily. 

Strickland's ^^ Queens of England" is rather the 
polished adulation of a courtier ; but in this coun- 
try, the writer who undertakes to characterize the 
wives of the Presidents has little material to work 
^upon; and generally little pay. 

The best book on the Presidents' wives is that of 
Mrs. Laura Carter Holloway, published in 1870; and 
to that, with other materials at my command, I refer 
for a running commentary upon the twenty-six or 
twenty-seven gentlewomen who have periodically 
played in the four or eight years drama, and some- 
times for a shorter interval, in what the foreigner 
has amusingly called "the presidential palace of 
the republicans." 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 457 

Having known most of the ladies, and many of 
their associates, who have figured in and flitted out 
of the White House since 1840, a brief reference to 
the long procession since Mrs. Martha Washington, 
in 1789, by way of introduction to the accom- 
plished woman who will, I believe, succeed Mrs. 
Hayes on the 4th of March, 1881, will be a 
pleasing exception to the heavier parts of this 
volume. Women in society are a later growth 
than women in political power, just as kings and 
queens are older than the best of our inventions 
and discoveries in science and in art. And when 
we remember that even Shakespeare's plays were 
for many years enacted by boys, we may, perhaps, 
make some allowance for the accomplished 
woman, who, in a recent popular magazine, takes 
up the cudgels against her sex, and, at least 
to her own satisfaction, proves that all the great 
things in our civilization have been produced by 
men, and that the best and most distinguished 
women of the present day are simply the proofs 
and products of a superior masculine system. We 
can not look for such high culture, and inbred 
greatness, in the wives of our American chief 
magistrates as are found scattered through the 
royal houses of the Old World, and for an obvious 
reason. Our Presidents do not inherit their titles, 
and their places. They are never trained for high 
offices. In the average, the chief magistrate is an 
accident ; there is no incident of a cradled ruler, 



458 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

or an embryo executive, in this country; whereas, 
elsewhere the nurse of the infant frequently knows 
that infant may or must become a future king or 
queen; and all the curled darlings of the courts 
grow up in the reasonable certainty that their lot 
is not the lot of other people; but that other peo- 
ple are reared with equal or more certainty of 
being "hewers of wood, and drawers of water." 
And as with our Presidents, so with our Presidents' 
wives. 

First, Miss Martha Dandridge, then the widow 
Mrs. Custis, and last Mrs. Martha Washington, was 
extremely plain in her dress, quite domestic, wore 
clothes woven by her own servants, and her hus- 
band, the General, appeared at his inauguration, 
in 1789, in a suit of fine cloth, the handiwork of 
his own household. 

Her first husband was rich, her second richer; 
and in early life she was regarded as remarkably 
handsome. She had her own trials, as the wife of 
the great President; and once passing through 
Philadelphia, was insulted, by the ladies there, for 
some reason, who declined extending her any 
civilities. She was a thorough housekeeper, and 
on one occasion, as the best proof of her skill in 
domestic manufactures, two of her dresses, worn at 
receptions, were composed of cotton striped with 
silk, and entirely home-made. She had no child- 
ren by Washington, but two by her first husband. 
Her levees, held at No. 3 Franklin Square, New 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 459 

York, were numerously attended. Her levees in 
Philadelphia were held in Market street between 
Fifth and Sixth, on the south side, in a house 
rented from Kobert Morris, who had furnished it 
handsomely, but not gorgeously. Washington died 
on the 14th of December, 1799; and on the 31st, 
Mrs. Martha Washington answered the resolutions 
of condolence passed by the Congress of the United 
States in a grateful letter. She died in the spring 
of 1801, in the seventy-first year of her age. 

Mrs. Washington had been a very handsome 
woman, whefn she married Colonel Washington, 
and in the admirable picture of her by Woolston, 
painted about the same time, we see something of 
that pleasing grace which is said to have been 
her distinction. Born of a good family and heiress 
of a liberal fortune, Martha Dandridge had troops 
of suitors before her first marriage, at seventeen, 
and when a few years after, as the richest and 
handsomest widow in Virginia, Mrs. Daniel Parke 
Custis attracted the tender regard of the young 
soldier of Mount Vernon, there was, of course, 
abundant competition ; but only the brave deserve 
the fair, and in this case only the bravest could 
win the fairest. " Like her illustrious husband," 
we learn from the journals of the day, " she was 
clothed in the manufactures of our own country 
in which her native goodness and patriotism ap- 
peared to advantage." She came to Philadelphia 
from Gray's Ferry ; Mrs. Robert Morris occupied 



460 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

a seat beside Mrs. Washington, who was to be her 
guest, resigning her own carriage to young Custis, 
and at about two o'clock the procession entered 
High street, near her residence, greeted by the 
ringing of bells, the discharge of thirteen guns 
from the park of artillery under Captain Fisher, 
and the cheering shouts of an immense concourse 
of joyous people. Here Mrs. Washington, taking 
leave of her escort, thanked the troops and citi- 
zens in the most gracious manner for their polite 
attention. 

Though Mrs. Washington is said by some people 
who have written descriptions or memoirs of her, 
to have been a very notable housewife, it does not 
appear from any correspondence or other docu- 
ments which have fallen under my observation, 
that she ever did much to relieve the General of 
the trouble of household affairs. They evidently 
lived together on very excellent terms, though she 
sometimes was disposed to quarrel with him about 
her grand-children, who, he insisted, should be un- 
der thorough disciplinarians as well as competent 
teachers when they were sent from home to be 
educated. 

The higher domestic life of that period, as re- 
vealed in all we know of its refinement and 
elegance, its dignified courtesy and inflexible 
morality, can be contemplated with only a re- 
spectful admiration. It was in keeping with the 
frankness and sincerity of ascendant politics. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 461 

Women unhesitatingly evinced their sympathies 
with whatever was generous and honorable in 
public conduct, but rarely if ever in forgetfulness 
of the requirements of feminine propriety. Though 
patriotic they were content to be women still, and 
were anxious for the distinction of delicacy and 
grace. They perceived that it was their nobility 
not to be men, but to be women worthy of men. 
In possession of every right with which they were 
endowed by nature, they had no desire to exercise 
men's prerogatives. There were indeed some 
shameless females, not unwilling to exhibit morti- 
fication at having been created of a sex whose finer 
attributes were beyond their emulation, and all 
the poor stuff which this class now displays in 
periodical offences against decency, was spoken 
and written till it grew too stale even for derision ; 
but these creatures were not in society; they were 
regarded only as curious monsters. Such wives as 
those of Washington, Adams, Jay, Wolcott, Brad- 
ford, and King, had no desire, as Montaigne ex- 
presses it, "to cover their beauties under others 
that were none of theirs." 

A very different person was Mrs. John Adams, 
the wife of the second President of the United 
States, one of the class whom her grandson, 
Charles Francis Adams, said, " were more remarka- 
ble for their letter-writing propensities than the 
novel -reading and more pretending daughters of 
this era." She was Abigail Smith, married to 



462 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

John Adams when she was twenty years old, in 
1764, and in 1775 was at her home charged with 
the sole care of her little brood of children ; frugal, 
kind, working with her own hands, often at the 
spinning-wheel, and learning French as if in expec- 
tation of her destiny. She was a New England 
fighting woman, for when the Revolution came on, 
she wrote of the English : " Let us separate, they 
are unworthy to be our brethren. Let us renounce 
them, and instead of suplications, as formerly for 
their prosperity and happiness, let us beseech the 
Almighty to b Isat their counsels and bring to 
naught all their devices," She was the first re- 
presentative of her sex from the United States at 
the court of Great Britain with her husband, John 
Adams. She saw George IV and the Queen, and 
soon became a notoriety by her frank and peculiar 
manners. Afterwards, as the wife of the second 
President, she opened the first New Year's recep- 
tion in the White House in 1801, and her descrip- 
tion of Washington City in 1800 is very amusing; 
she wrote : " You cannot see wood for trees. Con- 
gress comes in but to shiver, shiver, shiver. No 
woodcutters or carters to be had at any rate. We 
are now indebted to a Pennsylvania wagoner to 
bring us through in the treasury office — a cord and 
a half of wood, which is all we have in this house 
where twelve fires are constantly required, where 
we are told the roads will soon be so bad it cannot 
be drawn." Her health was too poor to entertain 



' WINFIELB SCOTT HANCOCK. 463 

much, and so she returned to Quincy after being 
mistress of the White House for less than half a 
year. She died on the 18th of October, 1818, 
seventy-four years old. 

Mrs. Adams was one of the remarkable charac- 
ters of her age. She was not without tenderness 
and womanly grace, but her distinction- was a mas- 
culine understanding, energy, and decision, fitting 
her for the bravest or most delicate parts in affairs, 
and in an eminent degree for that domestic relation 
continued harmonious through so many changeful 
years, herself unchanged always, and making her 
own life a portion of her husband's in a manner 
that illustrates the noblest ideas we have of mar- 
riage. 

The third President of the United States was a 
widower, Mrs. Jefferson, the wife of the . author of 
the Declaration of Independence, having died nine- 
teen years before his election. She was a widow, 
Mrs. Skelton, at the time of their marriage, 1772. 
Jefierson was a true Democrat. He held no for- 
mal receptions, and his daughters were only with 
him twice during his eight years Presidency at 
Washington. 

Mr. Jefferson, after a very pleasant passage, ar- 
rived at Norfolk, from France, on the 23d of No- 
vember, 1789, and in 1801 he was elected Presi- 
dent after filling other high and important offices- 
His wife had been dead many years, but his two 
daughters, whom he had educated very carefully 



464 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

in their native country and in Europe, were now 
grown to womanhood, and the eldest of them had 
been waiting his return to be married to Mr. 
Thomas Mann Randolph, of Tuckahoe, whom he 
describes as " a young gentleman of genius, science, 
and honorable mind, who afterwards filled a dig- 
nified station in the general government, and the 
most dignified in his own state." On the 1st of 
March, he left home for the seat of government, 
to assume his duties as Secretary of State. 

The fourth President of the United States, James 
Madison, also married a widow, Mrs. Todd, 
who became the famous Dolly Payne Madison. 
Her courtly manners and personal charms made 
her a universal favorite. In her thirty-seventh 
year she entered the White Bouse, having dis- 
pensed the hospitalities of her husband's house 
while he was Secretary of State for eight years, 
making everybody happy with her bright and 
cheerful manners. Her chief trait was her table, 
which was so plenteous that it was more like a 
harvest home supper than the entertainment of a 
Secretary of State, which she answered by saying 
that "she thought abundance preferable to ele- 
gance, that circumstances formed customs and cus- 
toms formed tastes, and as profusion was repug- 
nant to foreign customs, from the circumstances of 
the superabundance ot our country, she did not 
hesitate to sacrifice the delicacy of European taste 
for the less elegant but more liberal fasliion of 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 465 

Virginia." But she did not stay long in the White 
House. The second war with Great Britain came 
on, the British burned that and the Capitol, and 
the President and his household had to fly. When 
in Paris, I heard Dr. Evans describe the troubles 
of the fugitive Queen Eugenie as she fled from 
Paris after the fall of Sedan, I thought of the suf- 
fering of Mrs. Madison when the British drove her 
from Washington after destroying the President's 
house. She had to fly in disguise and in the most 
dreadful storm of the period, sought in vain for a 
place wherein to rest her head. After the retire- 
ment of the English, the President rented the house 
owned by Col. Tayloo, which I distinctly remember, 
on the cornd^ of New York Avenue and 18th 
Street, Washington City. At her last New Year's 
reception, the President was dressed in a full suit 
of cloth of American manufacture made of the 
wool of Merinos raised in the United States. She 
was not a learned woman but had great natural 
talents. In 1817 President Madison's term ex- 
pired. She lived to a great age, dying on the 12th 
of July, 1849, at her residence in Washington City, 
southeast corner of Eighth St. and Madison Place. 
The next lady of the White House was Mrs. 
James Monroe. She married Senator Monroe in 
1789 and came to Philadelphia with her husband 
to take his seat in the Senate of the United States. 
He was afterwards appointed American Minister 
to France, where they remained five years, a fact 



466 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

enabling her to enjoy society and study French 
character. She was tall and gracefully formed, 
polished and elegant, and as the wife of a Virginia 
senator, independent by her fortune, surrounded by 
luxury and prosperity. While she was abroad. La 
Fayette was captured by the Austrians and thrown 
into a Prussian dungeon at Wesel on the Rhine, 
where he was terribly treated. Mrs. Monroe took 
a deep interest in the illustrious prisoner, and re- 
solved to secure an interview between the General 
and his wife, who had herself been condemned to 
death. La Fayette was released from prison at 
the end of five years, and his wife at the end of 
twenty-two months. In 1817 President Monroe, 
after his election, removed to the White House 
where he and his wife continued to reside during 
his eight years term. They had brought with 
them certain foreign customs and manners, and 
their levees were quite distinguished, although 
very democratic. Foreigners spoke of the cordi- 
ality of the President and his wife. After he re- 
tired from ofiice, President Monroe was engaged 
with the other two ex-presidents, Jefferson and 
Madison, in establishing the University of Virginia, 
and Mrs. Monroe was never so happy as when 
entertaining the throng of visitors who delighted 
to do honor to the three ex-presidents of the United 
States, the sons of the old Commonwealth of Vir- 
ginia, as they met together under her roof She 
died suddenly in 1830, at an advanced age. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 467 

Mrs. Louisa Catherine Adams, wife of John 
Quincy Adams, was the sixth lady of the White 
House, and with her closed the list of the official 
women of the American Revolution. She was born 
in the city of London, February 11th, 1775, her 
father, Mr. Johnson of Maryland, then living in 
England. Like her husband's mother, she was 
what might be called a public woman from her 
marriage, and this will account for their uncom- 
mon posterity. John Quincy Adams first saw her 
in her father's house, in 1794. On the 26th of 
July, 1797, they were married at the church of 
All Hallows. In 1801, after the birth of her first 
child, she embarked with her husband on his re- 
turn to the United States, having settled in Boston, 
where she determined to live, but her husband was 
elected United States Senator, and she removed 
with him to Washington, then a primitive and 
ill-conditioned place. Her husband, John Quincy 
Adams, was sent out as Minister to Russia, and 
she accompanied him, remaining six years in St. 
Petersburg, w^here they lived frugally and made 
the basis of a very comfortable competency in 
America. 

The second war between England and America 
broke out while Mr. Adams was in Russia, and 
the Emperor prepared the way for the return of 
John Quincy Adams and his wife, by offering to 
mediate between the two countries. The commis- 
sioners were royally entertained at St. Petersburg, 



468 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

much to the delight of Mrs. Adams, who then saw 
high society at its best. John Quincy Adams was 
elected President of the United States, after filling 
various high cabinet positions, in 1824, and was 
inaugurated March 4th, 1825, with considerable 
ceremony, Mrs. Adams giving up the comforts of 
a home for the thankless trials of a lady of the 
White House, where she remained four years, 
returning to Quincy to be recalled to Washington 
by the election of her husband as member of the 
House of Representatives shortly after. He held 
his seat in the House for fifteen years. His wife 
remained with him all the time down to his death 
on February 21st, 1848, when she, like Mrs. 
Washington, answered the resolutions of Congress 
in a letter of excellent taste. She died on the 
14th of May, 1852, about seventy-seven years of 
age. There were four children, three sons and a 
daughter, the only survivor, I believe, being 
Charles Francis Adams, now living near Boston, 
in his seventy-fourth year. 

Mrs. Andrew Jackson was never in the White 
House, having died in three months before his in- 
auguration as the seventh President of the United 
States. A stormy life, the wife of another man, and 
hardly divorced when General Jackson paid atten- 
tion to her, she passed away on the 23d of De- 
cember, 1828, leaving the future mistress of the 
White House, Rachel Donelson, who afterwards 
married the adopted son of Andrew Jackson, a 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 469 

black-haired, sprightly, pretty child of twelve years 
at that time. Of Mrs. Jackson, herself, it need 
only be said she was a plain woman, not beautiful. 
Terror-stricken at the idea of going into the White 
House, she purchased all the clothing and house- 
hold articles both for herself and her servants' 
use, and was defended by old Hickory, with a 
knightly gallantry all his own. There were two 
ladies of the White House, during General Jack- 
son's term of eight years, Mrs. Andrew Jackson 
Donelson, who presided at the receptions and who 
died young, of consumption, and Mrs. Andrew 
Jackson, Jr., the wife of President Jackson's foster 
son, w^ho was the second mistress of the Presiden- 
tial Mansion. This lady was the daughter of Peter 
York of Philadelphia, whose grandfather. Judge 
York, held an appointment under the crown of 
Great Britain prior to the Revolution. While she 
was presiding at the White House in Washington, 
General Jackson said to a deputation from the Key- 
stone State, "Gentlemen, I am very glad to see you, 
for I am much indebted to Pennsylvania. She has 
given me a daughter who is a great comfort to her 
father." She lived at the Hermitage after the death 
of General Jackson and Mrs. Donelson for many 
years, and was an excellent woman. She died 
shortly after our unhappy civil war, 

Martin Van Buren, the eighth President of the 
United States, lost his wife in 1819, seventeen 
years before his election to the Presidency. The 



470 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

mistress of the White House was Mrs. Abraham 
Van Buren, who married Colonel Van Buren, Presi- 
dent Van Buren's oldest son, in 1838. She was a 
South Carolina lady, irresistibly beautiful in form 
and deportment. She and her husband remained 
abroad for some years in the family of Andrew 
Stevenson, her uncle, then United States Minister 
to England. They remained with the President 
during the last year or two of his term of office, 
and then lived with him at Lindenwald, after his 
retirement until death. 

Anna Semmes, the wife of the ninth President of 
the United States, Mrs. William Henry Harrison, 
was born the famous year of American Independ- 
ence, near Morristown, N. J. She became the wife of 
Captain Harrison in 1795. She never saw the 
White House, detained at her husband's home by 
her own illness, where she heard of his death on 
the 4th of April, 1841. She remained at her old 
home, where the happiest years of her life had been 
spent, until 1855, when she removed to the resi- 
dence of her only surviving son, the Hon. A. Scott 
Harrison, five miles below North Bend, Indiana, 
dying on the 25th of February, 1864, in the eighty- 
ninth year of age. 

Now we reach John Tyler, who became the 
tenth President of the United States by the death 
of General Harrison. His first wife was the daugh- 
ter of Robert Christian of Virginia. She died on 
the 19th of September, 1842. The President mar- 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 471 

ried again Miss Julia Gardner on the 26tli of 
June, 1844, at the Church of the Ascension, New 
York City. For a period of eight months this beau- 
tiful lady did the honors of the Executive Mansion 
with success. I think she is still alive. 

Mrs. James K. Polk, daughter of Captain Joel 
and Elizabeth Childress, was born near Murfres- 
boro, Tennessee, on the 4th of September, 1804, 
and is still living at Nashville, in the beautiful 
home of her husband. I know this estimable lady 
well. More than once I attended her receptions. 
A stately, attractive, exceedingly well balanced and 
well preserved Southern woman, she was also a 
Christian and a patriot down to, and after her hus- 
band's death. Her hair was very black, her dark 
eye and complexion reminded me of the Spanish 
type of beauty. While Mr. Buchanan was Sec- 
retary of State, I had many opportunities of seeing 
this excellent woman, and during the Centennial 
year had quite an agreeable correspondence with 
her, when I invited her to become my guest, but 
she was compelled to decline. 

Mrs. Zachary Taylor was another of the ladies 
who never presided at or managed the White 
House. Her plain, heroic and unpretending hus- 
band was elected President of the United States in 
1848, she having bitterly opposed his candidacy. 
When it was understood that she would not assume 
the responsibility of going to Washington as its 
presiding divinity, her daughter, Elizabeth Taylor, 



472 LIFE AND PUBLIC CABEEB OF 

twenty- two years of age, was announced as her 
mother's substitute. When she took possession, 
she had just been married to Major Bliss of the 
regular army. She was educated in Philadelphia. 
The inauguration of ^'old Kough and Ready" was 
one of the most brilliant ever seen in Washington, 
the Whigs having mounted into power after a 
long absence from office. Her mother, Mrs. 
Taylor, was never visible in the reception rooms. 
She received her visitors in her private apart- 
ments, and so escaped observation. The political 
revolution made the receptions of Mrs. Bliss very 
attractive, and the old hero President surprised 
his friends by his courtliness and dignity. But 
this administration only lasted a year, for on the 
9th of July, 1850, he was overheated at a celebra- 
tion and died, in the sixty-third year of his 
age. Thus terminated the public career of Mrs. 
Bliss. Mrs. Taylor survived until August 22, 
1850, and Major Bliss soon followed, leaving his 
wife without children, to become the wife of 
another husband, under whose name her historic 
connection passed away. 

Mrs. Millard Fillmore, wife of the new Presi- 
dent, the former Vice-president, was born in 1798, 
and made a most acceptable mistress of the Presi- 
dential mansion, dying at Wizard's Hotel, Wash- 
ington City, on the 30th of March, 1853, a few 
weeks after the termination of her husband's ad- 
ministration. During her illness the lady of the 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 473 

White House was the only daughter of President 
Fillmore, Miss Abigail Fillmore, and she died 
on the 28th of July, 1854, 

Mrs. Franklin Pierce, the wife of the next 
President of the United States, was Jane Means 
Appleton, of Hampton, New Hampshire, born 
March 12th, 1806. She was married to Franklin 
Pierce at the age of twenty-eight, in 1834, and was 
an amiable person, whose husband was one of the 
truest men and altogether the most perfect official 
person I ever knew. She was in ill health when 
he was elected President, in 1852, and had been 
the mother of three children. While going to 
Washington, on the 5th of January, 1853, with 
her husband, the President-elect, and her only 
boy, an accident occurred on the Boston and 
Maine Railroad, throwing the cars down a steep 
embankment, in which their bright little son lost 
his life. Thus she began her experience in the 
White House under a cloud, which seemed to rest 
upon her for four years. She would appear at 
some of the receptions and state dinners, but pre- 
ferred retirement. She remained in Washington 
until the termination of her husband's adminis- 
tration, when she made the European tour with 
him. She survived till the 2d of September, 
1863, and died at Andover, Mass. 

Now I come to a lady, still living in Baltimore, 
of whom it may be said that no one ever filled the 
position at the head of a great establishment with 



« 

474 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

more delicacy, dignity, and refinement. I mean 
Harriet Lane, the niece of James Buchanan, the 
succeeding President of the United States, now 
Harriet Lane Johnson. Having difiered from her 
uncle early in his administration, after having given 
the best years of my life to make him President, 
and never having but once crossed his threshold 
during his administration, I am glad to say that 
the recollection of her many excellent traits and 
sweet courtesy, and the fragrant memory of her 
dear sister, Mary, her brother Eskdridge, and all 
her kindred, including her father and her Uncle 
Lane, is one of the memories I love to dwell upon. 
She accompanied Mr. Buchanan abroad as Min- 
ister to England, and was the lady of the White 
House during four years, from 1857 to 1861. She 
now temporarily resides, during the summer, at 
Wheatland or at Bedford, and is the mother of 
several children, comforted, says her biographer, 
in the great work of training up her boy to be 
worthy of the name of James Buchanan Johnston. 
Of Mrs. Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the mur- 
dered President of the United States, Abraham 
Lincoln, I do not allow myself to write at length. 
Her life was so eventful, and so full of trials, and at 
the last so saddened by the terrible tragedy of our 
age, that I cannot lift the curtain to revive the 
memories of the great civil war, with which Mr. 
Lincoln's administration opened, and with which 
it closed. One incident I may mention: After his 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 475 

assassination, she remained behind in the White 
House (while President Johnson occupied other 
quarters), with her little son, Thaddeus or ''Tad," 
as he was more frequently called. My dear friend, 
Marshall 0. Roberts, of New York, still living, 
had sent me a check for ten thousand dollars to 
administer to her immediate wants, as a genuine 
evidence of his kind and thoughtful nature. She 
was in her bed-room when I asked to be admitted, 
to hand her this welcome contribution, and the 
poor little boy, since called to his home, a curi- 
ous, quaint child and witty and winning, crawled 
into my arms and pointed the way to his mother. 
The double agony, the wild animal-like grief of 
the elfin child, the deep horror of the stricken 
mother, with the fresh memory of the mur- 
dered father, made up altogether such a scene 
as can neither be described nor forgotten. Mrs. 
Lincoln is still living, having only one child left, 
her accomplished and gifted son, Robert T. Lincoln, 
a member of the Cook County Bar in the City of 
Chicago. 

Mrs. Andrew Johnson, like Mrs. Zachary Tay- 
lor, and very like Mrs. Franklin Pierce and Mrs. 
Fillmore, recalling also the early death of Mrs. 
Andrew Jackson, came to Washington with her 
husband, but was rarely seen. She never appeared 
in society at Washington. Her very existence 
was almost a myth. She was last seen at a party 
given to her grand-children : she was seated in one 



476 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

of the reception court-chairs of satin and ebony. 
She did not rise when the children and her guests 
were presented to her, but simply said: "I am an 
invalid, my dears." Her two daughters, Mrs. 
Patterson and Mrs. Stover, attended to the duties 
of hostess of the White House, the last succeeding 
the first. When Mrs. Senator Patterson found 
herself the first lady in the land, she made the 
remark, which at the time struck me to the heart: 
" We are plain people from the mountains of Ten- 
nessee, called here for a short time by a national 
calamity. I trust too much will not be expected 
of us." And when poor Anna Surratt threw her- 
self prostrate on the floor of the White House 
begging to see Mrs. Patterson, she said, " Tell the 
girl she has my sympathy and my tears, but I 
have no more right to speak than the servants of 
the White House." It must not be forgotten, that 
when Mrs. Surratt was executed, that act was 
demanded by the ravenous cry of a great party, if 
not a great people, and the most resolute in yield- 
ing to the popular wish was the President. 

No lady ever followed a chief magistracy into 
the White House more surrounded with tempta- 
tions and more envied than Mrs. Grant, Miss 
Dent when she married the young lieutenant, 
Ulysses S. Grant, and none I am sure ever passed 
over its portals with the good opinion of more 
people, and with the fine consolation that she had 
done her best to help ease her husband's labors, 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 477 

and to contribute to the happiness of others. 
Among the most pleasant souvenirs of the Presi- 
dential Mansion, from 1869 to 1876, were the 
evenings I was permitted to spend with the father 
of Mrs. Grant, the venerable Mr. Dent. He lived 
in his son-in-law's family during several of the 
years of his administration, and was present at the 
public and private dinners. The frank and fear- 
less and amusing utterances of the old gentleman 
were so indulgently listened to by his daughter 
and by the President, and were generally so origi- 
nal as to leave a deep impression. More than 
once when I met him in the presence of the Chief 
Magistrate, Ulysses S. Grant, he would say, 
" Well, I was always a Democrat; I was in favor 
of putting down the Kebellion, but I never had 
any confidence in these modern Eepublicans, and 
I do not believe that you can forget the old Dem- 
ocratic party, neither you nor Ulysses," pointing 
at him. Nobody ever lost his temper, nobody 
attempted to stop the fine old man, and there was 
such an air of independence about him that I do 
not know whether I liked jnost the way in which 
he talked himself, or the affectionate manner in 
which Mrs. Grant and the General listened to 
him. 

Of Mrs. Hayes, the present lady of the White 
House, I can only say that judged by public in- 
formation she is the model priestess of a new 
system. For the first time in the history of the 



478 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Government, the principles of Father Matthew 
have been sanctified into a custom in the mansion 
of the President of the United States. This itself, 
if not an act of high courtesy, is certainly an 
achievement of rare courage. 

All our Presidents, from Washington down, 
liked a glass of wine. Washington affected Ma- 
deira ; Jefferson the thin wine of France ; Monroe 
and Madison were the Virginia statesmen of the 
old school, not averse to a little apple toddy ; John 
Quincy Adams had a quarrel and a bitter quarrel, 
as he tells us in his memoirs, with a certain poli- 
tician, whom he had to tell that he did not know 
anything about the celebrated vintage called Tokay. 
Andrew Jackson dearly loved his gin-sling. 
Franklin Pierce was a most graceful host at his 
own or at any other table I ever knew. John Ty- 
ler liked his cock-tail. James Buchanan was a 
connoisseur of old rye and good Madeira. Abra- 
ham Lincoln was a natural Temperance man, not 
so much because he made it a form, as because, 
perhaps, he had found ^' to what base uses men 
will come " who abuse the berry. Andrew John- 
son was sometimes over fond of an extra dram. 
Grant never denied his army education, and was 
true to the last to his colors alike of society and of 
war, while I must say that even Mr. Hayes, pure 
as the water he prefers, and abstemious according 
to the new dispensation at Washington, did take a 
glass of champagne wine with me at the Union 



WINFIELB SCOTT HANCOCK. 479 

League several years ago, before he entered into 
the presidency. 

After this long list of ladies of the White House, 
so many of them Southern women, I reprint what, 
when I said it, was roundly denounced, by a cler- 
gyman, last Decoration Day, May 29, 1880, who 
had not yet learned to forget and forgive : — 

"To chronicle the good done for the cause of the Union by the women 
of America would be like chronicling the stars. As well call from their 
dusty graves, by name, the million of Union and Confederate dead, 
known and unkown, that now sleep between the lakes of the North and 
the gulf of the South. We stand appalled before the living ! Why ask 
the censor? Why vex ourselves about the dead? But here, in this 
sweet sanctuary, as I talk to the survivors, vainly hoping that the dull, 
cold ears of your dead comrades may hear my voice, may I not say 
something to you about the women of the South ? They, too, have had 
their dead. Alas! they had a longer catalogue of agony than our 
women. Do we ever think of their dead hopes, their peri«hed pleasures, 
their destroyed homes, their revolutionized customs? I constantly put 
myself in t^eir place, and I am often moved to inexpressible grief as I 
think of them. The Southern women are our sisters; but they are 
different from our Northern sisters. Among their peculiarities is their 
sensitiveness to our sympathy. They recoil from pity, they scorn con- 
solation, they hug their dead to their hearts, and seem envious if others 
attempt to share their sorrows. A Northern woman is rarely a politi- 
cian, while the most delicate of the gentler sex of the South imbibe 
their politics with all their teachings, and often dim their beauty in the 
angry impulse of the moment. And yet I speak whereof I know, there 
is no malignity in the heart of a true Southern woman. She is full of 
the theories of her father and brother, but she is not insensible to the 
gentle ministrations of her Northern daughters. During the war we 
heard much of the ferocity of the Southern ladies, and doubtless many 
were deeply wounded by its necessary rigors; but now holier impulses 



480 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREEB OF 

are producing a natural harvest. The unruffled courtesy of the best 
women of the North, the wider dissemination of the best culture, the 
wonderful improvement of the Southern newspapers, the rapid spread 
of a higher female education, the astounding growth of Southern rail- 
roads, and the unseen forces of example, like the magical processes of 
a restless assimulation, are gradually moulding, not only the women, 
but the men of the South, into a better condition of life. 

''But if these ministrations were not within themselves so potent, 
there is the ennobling example of the men who survive to tell of the 
battles they fought in the opposing armies. The proud disdain of par- 
tison politics by the true soldier is a spectacle fit for the gods. The noisy, 
like the mousing partisan, is always a trader for office or was a very 
poor fighting man. Bravery is twinned with modesty always, as silence 
is the best badge of the soldier. The proud warrior like Grant or Lee, 
like Sheridan or Joe Johnston, talks with his sword, and shuns the 
loud declaimer as he does the drunken bully. These are your genuine 
missionaries. 

And what makes these gallant missionaries so efiective among the 
women. North and South, is their presence at the memorial days in 
both sections. It is the province of the brave and fair to honor real 
grief over the monuments of their loving dead. Hate dies before the 
tomb ; the flowers of forgiveness bloom on the sepulchre. Even love 
has been consecrated as men and women shed mutual tears over the 
dear departed. Over all shines the supreme star that, in a reunited 
country, you cannot maintain a divided people. There is an omnipre- 
sence in this age that defeats alienation. The nations are coming toge- 
ther; continents are neighbored by steam and electricity. Distance is 
annihilated, and men and women speak across the ocean, make love by 
the telephone, and marry by photograph. How then to keep thoi North 
and South separate ? It can no more be done with the living than it 
can be done with the dead. The hearts of the first will throb in unison 
as surely as the ashes of the last mingle together. 

When brave men to battle go, 
They fight as foe fights foe, 



LIFE AND PUBLIC CAltEEB OF 481 

And then forget the blow. 

Sometimes, indeed, the girls 

Refuse to follow ; the proud lip curls, 

And the sweet voice bitter accents hurls ; 

But it will happen, in this earnest life, 

Even in the trials of our civil strife, 

Where sisters quarrel, and where the Southern wife 

Is sometimes ready to employ the knife 

Against her foe ; that there is a rest, 

A pause, when the wild bosom heaves, 

Takes counsel, and the hurt heart grieves 

Over quick temper ; and this relieves 

The surcharged spirit, like leaves 

That fall, the ripest fruit to show, 

To feed the hungry multitude below. 

Sometimes their too fiery anger. 

Like all passion, dies in languor ; 

And then these most lovely foemen 

Forget their hate, remembering they are women. 

So illogical is a passionate word, 

Like a keen and always noiseless sword, 

Only a hint is needed to the female heart 

To sheathe the sword, and make tears to start; 

And then almost as quick as Spring-like weather, 

The angry women melt, and fondly come together. 

Mrs. Hancock, who in all probability will pre- 
side in the establishment of the next President of 
the United States, was formerly Miss Russell. 
She is a woman of fine physique and beauty of 
face. She is several years younger than her hus- 
band, who is nearly fifty-seven. The pictures of 
her, taken some years ago, before the death of her 
only daughter, whose loss was a severe blow to 



482 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

her, are very pleasing. Neither sorrow nor time, 
however, have altered her much, and the Mrs. 
Hancock of to-day is charming. She is slightly 
above medium height, and has a winsome way of 
her own which nobody who comes in contact with 
her tries to resist. 

And now, I close these sketches of the ladies 
of the White House, the wives or daughters 
or relatives of the twenty-eight Presidents of the 
United States since 1789, those elected by the peo- 
ple to that high office and those filling the vacan- 
cies created by death. The following tribute to 
Mrs. General Hancock, the hostess at Governor's 
Island, New York, will show how she is estimated 
by one of her own sex, and how, in the event of 
the choice of her husband to the Presidency, she 
is qualified to walk in the footsteps of her prede- 
cessors : 

'' It has been my special privilege and good 
fortune to have known for many years Mrs, Han- 
cock, the wife of our distinguished General, and I 
cannot resist the influence that inspires present 
meditation to add my tribute to a character com- 
bining such rare excellence of heart and mind. 
Possessed of intelligence and perception of an 
unusual order, quick at reparte, fascinating in 
conversation, of wondrous adaptability, companion- 
able alike to youth and age, she cannot fail to be a 
favorite with all. She is eminently fitted to adorn 
the most exalted position to which she might be 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 483 

called— an accomplished musician, it was indeed a 
rare treat to hear her, but this pleasure within the 
last few years I have not been permitted to enjoy. 
Since the loss of her dearly-loved and only daughter, 
much of the sunshine which brightened her life 
has departed, leaving upon her face, which has an 
incomparable charm for me (in my opinion is the 
surest indication of character), the impress of a 
great sorrow ; and as I see an occasional thread of 
silver in her golden red hair, I realize it is in truth 
the sorrowful heart that changes youth to age. 

" Transcendent above all else with this accom- 
plished and amiable lady, is the kindly generous 
nature with which she is richly endowed. Loyal 
and just, replete with every noble impulse, she is 
ever striving to ameliorate the condition of others 
less favored than herself, a heart responsive to 
every charitable demand, with words of sympathy 
and cheer for earth's afflicted ones, her sympathy 
falls like dew upon their blighted hearts. A mantle 
of inheritance has fallen on her; the generous 
hospitality which characterized her dear father 
and mother, and made their home near St. Louis 
one long to be remembered, is her special gift. 
The recipients of her bounteous kindness, for they 
are a legion, will renew with heartfelt pleasure 
the happy hour she has given, and the cordial 
welcome always extended to them. She is in my 
regard the peer of her good husband, and the em- 
bodiment of the exquisite sentiment : 



484 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

' A perfect woman, nobly planned, 
To warn, to comfort, and command.' " 

As Mrs. Hancock and Mrs Garfield study the 
twenty-eight lives of the ladies who came in and 
passed out of the respective administrations of this 
government, since Washington's first term, in 1789, 
they will gather nothing to discourage them. I do 
not think as much as can be said of the queens of 
foreign dynasties before the reign of Queen Victo- 
ria, and I am proudly sure that the fact is at least 
as strong in regard to all our American Presidents. 
Since the First English George no other European 
power has presented so marvellous a succession of 
good rulers as the United States ; and, I may add, 
not all the dynasties since Alfred, have shown so 
much integrity and capacity. Generals Hancock 
and Garfield may also think of this with satisfac- 
tion. 




W. H. English. 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 487 



HON. W. H. EI^aLISH, 

DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR VICE-PRESIDENT. 



IN the cemetery of the thriving but rather quiet 
town of Carrollton, the county seat of Greene 
-County, 111., there is, or was some years ago, an 
humble monument standing by two graves, 
bearing the following inscriptions : 

In memory of Elisha English, born March 2, 1768, near Laurel, 
Sussex County, Del. Married Sarah Wharton, Dec. 10, 1788. Re- 
moved to Kentucky in 1790, and to Greene County, Illinois, in 1830. 
Died at Louisville, Ky., March 7, 1857. He was a faithful husband, a 
kind father, and an honest man. 

In memory of Sarah Wharton, wife of Elisha English. Died No- 
vember 27, 1849, in the eighty-second year of her age. She was kind 
to her neighbors, devoted to her family, and a noble woman in all the 
relations of life. 

My father and my mother. They lived lovingly together as husband 
and wife over sixty years, and, before the tie was broken, could number 
200 living descendants. Their fourteen children all married and had 
children before a death occurred in the family. This monument is 
erected to their memory by Elisha G. English, of Indiana. 



488 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

These are the grand-parents, on the fathers 
side, of the subject of this sketch, the Hon.William 
H. English, and the facts disclosed by these inscrip- 
tions embody the most that is known of their 
history. 

On the mother s side his grandparents sleep their 
last sleep in the Riker's Ridge (or Hill's) burying- 
ground, a romantic spot near the Ohio river, a few 
miles northeast of Madison, Indiana, and again 
recourse is had to a monument which marks their 
graves as containing an epitome of the most that 
is known of their history : 

In memory of Philip Eastin, a Lieutenant in the Fourth Virginia 
Eegiment in the war of the American Revolution, who was buried in 
this secluded spot in the year 1817, leaving his widow and a large fam- 
ily of children to mourn his loss. "He sleeps his last sleep, he has 
fought his last battle." Honor his memory, for he was one of the 
brave and true men whose gallant deeds gave freedom and independ- 
ence to our country. 

In memory of Sarah Smith Eastin, who died near this place and was 
buried here in the year 1843. She was married to Lieutenant Philip 
Eastin at Winchester, Va., in 1782, near which place she was born, be- 
ing a descendant of the Hite family, who first settled that valley. The 
prosperity of early life gave place in her old age to poverty and the 
hardships of rearing a large family in a new country ; but she acted her 
part well under all circumstances, and died with the respect and love 
of all who knew her. Now that the joys and sorrows of a long and 
eventful life are over, they sleep well. May they rest in peace. This 
monument is erected to their memory by their grandson, William H. 
English. 

Of the seventeen children born to this pair, Ma- 
hala, the mother of our subject, first saw the light 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK, 489 

in Fayette County, Ky., and now resides with her 
distinguished son and only surviving child at In- 
dianapolis, in the eighty-second year of her age, 
retaining in a remarkable degree her health and 
all her faculties. 

As an element of character, and one which all 
good persons recognize as essential to greatness, 
not one can be named so well calculated to inspire 
respect as a profound veneration for ancestors, 
especially when its development draws the child- 
ren more to parents as the weight of years increase. 
This trait of character was never more beautifully 
exhibited than in Mr. English's devotion to his 
parents. His honors and his prosperity only vital- 
ized his affections for them, and in his elegant home, 
with all the refinements, comforts and luxuries 
wealth could command, he demonstrated the good- 
ness of his heart, the warmth of his affections and 
the nobility of his character. Indiana, among all 
her society, presents no more beautiful picture of a 
son's devotion than is to be found in the residence of 
Mr. English, where his mother, now over four-score 
years of age, is enjoying all the care that aiSfec- 
tion can bestow. 

I met William H. English, the Democratic can- 
didate for Vice-President, in 1852, while he was a 
member for Indiana, in the House of Representa- 
tives of the United States, and I was clerk of that 
body, elected in 1851 and re-elected in 1853. He 
was born in Scott county, Ind., August 7, 1822, 



490 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

received a good education, and spent three years 
at the University of South Hanover, then studied 
law and was admitted to practice in 1840. In 
1843 he was elected Clerk of the House of Repre- 
sentatives of Indiana, and Clerk of the State Con- 
stitutional Convention in 1850, and in 1851 was 
Speaker of the House of Representatives of his 
state, and after his re-election to Congress, was 
made a regent of the Smithsonian Institution. 

Yery agreeable, painstaking, and exact in busi- 
ness and full of work, was Mr. English. He was 
among the early supporters of Judge Douglas, and 
was among the leaders of the popular sove- 
reignty party in Congress. If there is one doc- 
trine that has triumphed over all opposition, it 
is the doctrine that the people of the territories, 
like the people of the states, should adjust all their 
internal affairs, slavery inclusive. And although 
Mr. Garfield, in one of his speeches in the House 
of Representatives, recently took occasion to ask 
what had become of popular sovereignty, thereby 
classing it among the perished dogmas of the last 
twenty years, if he should now go to Kansas, he 
would there find two likenesses, one on canvas and 
the other in marble, the one of Andrew H. Reeder 
of Pennsylvania, and the other of Eli Thayer of 
Massachusetts. Both of them are cherished in the 
innermost heart of the people of that great state, 
because they were the successful champions of 
popular sovereignty. Reeder is dead, but if he 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 491 

were now living, I do not think he would be found 
against the great soldier, the Democratic candidate 
for President, and his associate, Mr. English of 
Indiana. But Eli Thayer is still living at Wor- 
cester, Mass., a Kepublican advocate of General 
Hancock, and his proudest title to distinction is 
the fact that he organized the first emigrant aid 
company that made Kansas free, and that he was 
literally turned out of the Eepublican party in 
Massachusetts because he preferred the rule of the 
people in the territories to the rule of Congress, or 
the dogma of the Wilmot proviso. While I write 
this tribute to Mr. English, my old friend, Mr. 
Thayer, comes into my office and enunciates his 
favorite text, namely : " The Emigrant Aid Com- 
pany was the first organization of the kind, and it 
was the first time in the history of the world that 
the strength of free labor was organized to oppose 
physically the imbecility of slavery." 

Observing the effort to prove that Mr. English 
belongs to the monied class, it may be worth 
something to know he is supported with great 
resolution and willingness by the old Republican 
leader of Massachusetts, the friend of freedom and 
the laboring man. 

The exciting struggle in the national legislature 
over the admission of Kansas is no longer a text 
for party quarrels or a pretext for sectional hatred. 
Never has any doctrine born riper or richer fruits 
than popular sovereignty in Kansas and Nebraska. 



492 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

And to-day, if Stephen A. Douglas were living, 
he would not only rally to the standard of Winfield 
S. Hancock as the flag that leads to conciliation 
and peace in the Southern country, the pledge of 
brotherhood with the North and the South, but he 
would be among the first to pay an earnest tribute 
to William H. English. 

There were very many differences before the 
Kansas question was settled, and from 1854 to 
the admission of Kansas into the Union as a State 
in 1860, but it is profitable to remember that the 
Lecompton Constitution, which was the invention 
of the extreme men at that time, was regarded as 
so unjust and unfair among liberal Southern states- 
men that they did not hesitate to denounce it as 
unspeakably contemptible and dishonorable. 

The remark that General Hancock is not a 
statesman of the modern type, but a soldier after 
the model of Washington, Harrison, Taylor and 
Grant, ought to be supplemented by the remark 
that General Garfield is one of the modern dille- 
tante who talk of civil service and do not practice 
it, and regard the protection of American industry 
as one of the vulgar ideas of the day. They there- 
fore incline to the theories of the Cobden Club. 
Garfield may be healthfully contrasted with the 
fact that William H. English combines a good deal 
of the practical, every-day habits of Winfield S. 
Hancock, and at the same time a large considera- 
tion for polite literature. No man can be elected 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 493 

Regent of the Smithsonian Institute at Washing- 
ton without having considerable taste for science ; 
no man could be a successful practitioner before 
the Supreme Court of the United States for many 
years without being something of a lawyer ; and 
no man can be a prosperous banker without a 
large knowledge of American finance. Mr. Eng- 
lish is two years older than General Hancock, 

Those who remember the excitement prior to 
the admission of Kansas as a free State, in obe- 
dience to the popular will, will accept the philo- 
sophical truth that "time at last makes all things 
equal." And now, when Kansas is one of the 
grandest commonwealths in the world, and when 
popular sovereignty has proved itself to be the 
real remedy for all local faults, and has been 
incorporated into the whole organism of the 
country; adjusting and settling all territorial 
difficulties, it seems difficult to believe that so 
much acrimony should have existed between the 
North and the South on this question, and not 
only between the North and the South, but 
between individual members of the Northern Dem- 
cratic Party. 

The relation of Mr. English to the bill that bore 
his name has ceased to be misrepresented, and his 
after life shows that when finally war broke out, 
he was on the side of that portion of our people 
that were ready to make any sacrifices for the 
preservation of the Union. 



494 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Alluding to the folly of the South, when they 
threatened to break up the Union because of the 
election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency, he 
declared that "not a corporal's guard of Northern 
men would go out of the Union for such a cause, 
and that his constituency would only march under 
the flag and keep step to the music of the Union." 

Preserving a complete identity with his party 
as a Democrat, however, he never sustained a de- 
feat before the people, but retired in the full me- 
ridian of success to private life, just at the begin- 
ning of the War. Sharing the confidence of the 
leaders of his own party, he was also the intimate 
personal friend of the Eepublican Governor of 
Indiana, Oliver Perry Morton, another of the 
Democrats w^ho associated with the Eepublican 
party to put down the institution of slavery. He 
offered the command of a regiment to Mr. 
English, in full confidence that he was anxious to 
serve the country and put down the authors of 
our Civil War. In a speech made by Mr. Eng- 
lish, at Madison, Ind., the Madison Courier, of 
that place, a paper not of Mr. English's politics, 
said: 

'' Mr. English spoke for over an hour, and declared himself 
opposed to the Eepublican doctrines, and should boldly assail Mr. 
Lincoln's policy whenever he thought it wrong; but as a native of In- 
diana, thoroughly identified with Free State interests, he felt his alle- 
giance was exclusively due to the State of Indiana and the Government 
of the United States, and he should accordingly abide in good faith by 
their laws, and stand under the time-honored flag." 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 495 

In 1863 he became associated with the Hon. 
Hugh McCulloughj then entering upon the duties of 
comptroller of the currency, and the great bankers, 
J. F. Lanier, of New York, and George W. Riggs, 
of Washington, in the banking business. Under 
such auspices, he organized the First National 
Bank of Indianapolis, which ultimately became one 
of the most solvent and substantial institutions in 
the West. Under his administration as president, 
the bank began with a capital of $150,000, and 
during his admirable management the capital was 
increased to a million with $150,000 surplus; for 
over fourteen years Mr. English presided with 
remarkable ability and fidelity. Governor Morton, 
George W. Riggs, Thomas A. Hendricks, Hon. J. 
Cravin, and Hon. Franklin Landers, were directors. 

In 1877 he resigned the presidency of this bank, 
when the stockholders and directors paid him the 
high compliment of passing the following resolu- 
tion: 

" That the Executive Committee of the Board be directed to have 
prepared and present to Mr. English a suitable testimonial and memento 
of our personal regard and esteem, and that he carry with him our most 
sincere wishes for a long life of usefulness and happiness." 

After retiring from the bank, Mr. English sold 
out all his stock, and that of the street companies 
and other railways, and does not now own a dollar 
in any corporation. A clear-headed man of business, 
a lover of books^ a sound lawyer and a good 
speaker, logical rather than ornate, he has pre- 



496 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER 01 

served his credit like his integrity, to the end, 
and has always been the bold advocate of honest 
money and a sound conservative national system 
of finance. 

Mr. English was married on the 17th of Novem- 
ber, 1847, in the city of Baltimore, M. D., the Rev. 
Henry Slicer, Chaplain of the United States Senate, 
Washington, performing the ceremony. On the 
14th of November, 1876, Mr. English became a 
widower. His son and daughter are both living 
and both married. The fine residence of the De- 
mocratic candidate for Vice-President, in Indiana- 
polis, is pointed out because it was originally 
intended for the site of the residence of the Gov- 
ernor of that great State. His wealth is large, his 
taste refined, and his position among the first, so- 
cially and commercially. 

At this moment he is Chairman of the Demo- 
cratic State Central Committee of Indiana, the 
duties of which he continues to discharge as not 
inconsistent with his tastes and opinions. 

Born at the village of Lexington, Scott County, 
in Kentucky, August 27, 1822, he maybe said 
to have grown with the growth, and strengthened 
with the strength of a great commonwealth. 
When his father first settled in Indiana, the 
valley of the Mississippi, now an empire in wealth 
and population, was comparatively a wilderness, 
the home of savage beasts, and roving bands of 
scarcely less savage men. Now it contains a popu- 



WINFIELB SCOTT HANCOCK. 497 

lation of two millions and is full of the promise of 
a wonderful future. 

Mr. English has been a consistent member of 
the Democratic party, was an open adversary 
of Know-nothingism, a hearty sympathizer with 
popular sovereignty, but never allowed himself to 
go to the extremes of those who made the question 
of free Kansas a leading object of their political 
lives. He was never a Lecompton Democrat, yet 
not of those who wished to cripple the administra- 
tion or break up the Democratic organization. 
And this is the way he talked to the Southern 
men who forced the disruption of the Democratic 
party on the question of slavery, twenty-two years 
ago. The two extracts from his speeches will show 
exactly where he stood on that question. 

*' I think before Kansas is admitted, her people ought to ratify, or, at 
least, have a fair opportunity to vote upon the constitution under which 
it is proposed to admit her : at the same time, I am not so wedded to 
any particular plan that I may not, for the sake of harmony and as a 
choice of evils, make reasonable concessions, provided the substance 
would be secured, which is the making of the constitution, at an early 
day, conform to the public will, or, at least, that the privilege and oppor- 
tunity of so making it be secured to the people beyond all question. 
Less than this would not satisfy the expectations of my constituents, and 
I would not betray their wishes for any earthly considerations. If, on 
the other hand, all reasonable compromises are voted down, and I am 
brought to vote upon the naked and unqualified admission of Kansas 
under the Lecompton constitution, I distinctly declare that I can not, in 
conscience, vote for it." 

During the long and exciting contest over this 



498 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

question, which has seldom before been equaled in 
bitterness, and was really the prelude to the terri- 
ble civil war, Mr. English never departed from the 
position taken in this speech. As a party man he 
was anxious to heal the divisions that had sprung 
up among his political friends upon this question, 
and to relieve the Administration and the South 
from the position they had taken, which Mr. Eng- 
lish, in his heart, considered impolitic and danger- 
ous. 

He was ^^Anti-Lecompton," but not one of those 
who wished to cripple the Administration or break 
up the Democratic organization. He boldly and 
eloquently appealed to his Southern coUeages. Al- 
luding to the recent defeats of the Democracy at 
the North, he said : 

'' It should not be forgotten, that when we men or the North went 
forth to encounter this fearful army of fanatics, this great army of Aboli- 
tionists, Know-nothings and Eepublicans combined, you, gentlemen of 
the South were at home at your ease, because you had not run counter 
to the sympathies and popular sentiments of your people ; you went 
with the current, we against it. We risked everything, you compara- 
tively nothing ; and now I appeal to you whether, for the sake of an 
empty triumph of no permanent benefit to you or your ' peculiar insti- 
tution,' you will turn a deaf ear to our earnest entreaties for such an 
adjustment of this question as will enable us to respect the wishes of our 
constituents and maintain the union and integrity of our party at home ? 
Look to it, ye men of the South, that you do not, for a mere shadow, 
strike down or drive from you your only effective support outside the 
limits of your own States." 

There is no better way to study character than 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK. 499 

by the Plutarch method of parallels. How Mr. 
English was valued is shown by the following tes- 
timonials. President Buchanan wrote to him as 
follows: — 

" It was your fate to end a dangerous agitation, to confer lasting bene- 
fits upon your country, and to make your character historical. I shall 
remain always your friend. If I had a thousand votes you should 
have them all with a hearty good will." 

And now let us see what his constituents said 
when he retired from office. The Convention 
which nominated his successor in Congress adopted 
unanimously the following resolution : 

Resolved, That in selecting a candidate to represent this District in 
the Thirty-seventh Congress, we deem it a proper occasion to express 
the respect and esteem we entertain for our present member, Hon. W. 
n. English, and our confidence in him as a public officer. In his re- 
tirement, in accordance with his well known wishes, from the position 
of Representative, which he has so long filled with credit to himself 
and benefit to the country, we heartily greet him with the plaudit, 
" "Well done thou good and faithful servant." 

Again: Mr. English was for fifteen years 
intrusted with the management of one of the most 
important financial institutions in the West, from 
which he voluntarily retired with the thanks of the 
directors and stockholders. 

" For the very great financial ability, constant watchfulness and per- 
fect fidelity with which he has managed it from its organization to the 
present time." 

And this resolution was offered by Colonel John 
C. New, now the Chairman of the Indiana Repub- 
lican Central Committee, 



500 LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER OF 

Now note th'e career of the Republican Candi- 
date for Vice-President, Chester Arthur : 

Mr. Arthur was entrusted with the collection of 
the United States revenue at the city of New 
York. Was he faithful to that trust ? This ques- 
tion has been answered in the negative by the 
highest Republican testimony in the land, and it 
is too clear and emphatic to be called in question 
or explained away. 

Here is what President Hayes and John Sher- 
man said of Mr. Arthur when he was removed 
from the post of Collector of New York. It is 
Republican testimony, and should not be ques- 
tioned by Republicans. 

*' With a deep sense of my obligations under the Constitution, I regard 
it as my plain duty to suspend you in order that the office may be honestly 
administered.''^ — E. B. Hayes to Collector Arthur, January 31, 1879. 

" Gross abuses of administration have continued and increased dur- 
ing your incumbency." — Sherman to Collector Arthur, January 31. 
1879. 

*' Persons have been regularly paid by you who have rendered little 
or no service ; the expenses of your office have increased, while its re- 
ceipts have diminished. Bribes, or gratuities in the shape of bribes, have 
been received by your subordinates in several branches of the Custom House , 
and you have in no case supported the effort to correct these abuses^ — Secre- 
tary Sherman to Collector Arthur, January 31, 1879. 






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